Initially, Lux may look closer to an arduous academic quiz than a new popular music project from a musician who just had a last hit featured a global K-pop star. Divided across four separate parts and sung in thirteen languages, this is a dizzying orchestral-influenced album investigating female mystique, religious ascent, and physical change, frequently through the prism of different women saints. The dissolution of a romance—a topic treated with raw openness elsewhere—is launched skyward here, supported by the constant sound of a full orchestra and input from an award-winning songwriter within a long roll call of collaborators. The pure daring alone makes the efforts of other pop stars seem quite modest.
Rising Above Scholarly Exercise
The fact that this album manages to avoid overly academic chin-stroking feels nearly a miracle, with sole credit belonging to Rosalía. While it's not the first time project to fuse historical sounds and the present, the stakes feel far higher here, and the tightrope walk far more dramatic. What truly elevates this fourth release, beyond its complex tunes, dense compositions, and inherent drama, is a core spirit of joy. Much like the legendary Björk during her height, you find a wondrous quality to the vocalist's singing which sweeps you into its tornado. Even when she is tearing your heart apart, you still want to stay alongside her for the journey.
A Prime Moment of Exuberance
That exuberant spirit shines clearly on the stunning Italian song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful melancholy over several moments. Suddenly, everything drops silent, and we hear a gleeful giggle and a comment prior to a comically over-the-top string crescendo crashes down like cartoonish impact. The track immediately segues to the frenetic track driven by galloping strings, an imposing choral group, and a cameo appearance from none other than Björk.
"The magic with Lux lies in the listener never quite understand—nor want to know—what you will go next."
Almost every track concludes in a totally distinct point from where it began. One moment explores the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a featherlight orchestration only to disintegrating into digital cacophony. Elsewhere, a song echoing the artist's earlier rhythmic style starts out dark and sinister, with prowling vocals, before sudden traditional rhythms and an angelic choir enter to soften the song's rough corners.
The Balance Between Experiment & Pop
Another crucial achievement on Lux is straddling the gap between bold experimentation and mainstream accessibility. This is no coincidence that the album has achieved the artist's first work to crack the upper reaches of key charts: at its core a collection of utterly catchy hits. A song performed entirely in the English language swells around a chorus that seems to gather more and more nagging hooks as it spirals upward. This trick is repeated on another expansive ballad that expands and contracts, intertwining multiple melodies as an intricate weave.
- A dance-infused number seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic chorus.
- In its words, it shares the cultural honesty of other breakup anthems, lambasting an ex- lover labeled an "emotional terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals have a painted-on smile, like a fairy-tale character concealing a knife: "Gold medal in being a scoundrel / You've won the trophy of letdown."
A Maximalist Feast for the Soul
This album is pop on a maximalist level, an ambitious reach for high Art amid of looming AI-generated sameness. It rejects solipsism for glorious elevation, crafting an over-the-top drama that skillfully manages its own inherent ridiculousness. This is an abundant well of hidden treasure that requires time to fully mine but never seem like a chore. While some major releases of the year seemed like a meager scraps, this record offers a lavish feast at which the characters at the table, some intoxicated on sacred drink, flit between conversations about historical saints, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering sadness, and shared stories about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a contemporary musical from pop's truly endlessly creative practitioner.
