On the surface, this album could seem closer to an arduous university quiz rather than the latest popular music project from a musician who just had a previous hit was a collaboration with a global pop star. Split into four separate parts and voiced in 13 tongues, it is a dizzying symphonic work investigating feminine mystique, religious transcendence, and physical transformation, often through the prism of different women saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic handled with grounded openness elsewhere—soars upwards on this record, supported by the lush presence of a major symphony orchestra and contributions from an award-winning composer within a long roll call of collaborators. The pure audacity alone makes the efforts of other artists look rather laughable.
Rising Above Academic Pretense
That Lux succeeds in escape dry intellectual posturing is almost a miracle, with full credit belonging to the artist. While it's not her first album to alchemize historical sounds with the present, the stakes are far higher here, and the tightrope walk far more precarious. What really raises her fourth album, beyond its multilayered melodies, dense compositions, and engrained drama, proves to be a core spirit of joy. Similar to the iconic artist during her height, there is a captivating quality to the vocalist's voice that pulls you up in its tornado. When she is tearing your heart in two, the listener nevertheless desire to be alongside her for the journey.
A Prime Moment of Exuberance
This playful energy comes forth brightly during a stirring Italian song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool for several moments. Suddenly, everything drops away, to reveal we hear a spontaneous giggle and a comment before a comically over-the-top string surge thuds down like cartoonish force. The track immediately shifts into the wild single driven by galloping orchestration, a powerful choral group, and a cameo appearance from none other than Björk.
"The magic with Lux is that the listener rarely exactly understand—or even want to know—where you is going to next."
Almost every track finishes at a totally different place than where it started. A track explores the fleeting nature of celebrity with a featherlight symphony before collapsing in electronic cacophony. Elsewhere, a cut echoing her earlier rhythmic work starts out dark and sinister, with prowling beats, before sudden flamenco rhythms and an angelic chorus enter to soften its jagged corners.
The Balance Of Art and Pop
A key balancing act of Lux is straddling the line between bold experimentation and mainstream accessibility. It is no surprise that it has achieved her first work to crack the upper reaches of key markets: its heart contains a collection of truly undeniable hits. A song performed primarily in English swells on a chorus that feels to gather increasingly nagging melodies while it spins skyward. That trick gets echoed on a different powerful ballad that grows and contracts, intertwining multiple melodies like an intricate tapestry.
- A waltz-like song charms with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along chorus.
- Lyrically, it aligns the pop culture impact of other breakup songs, eviscerating an ex- partner labeled an "psychological bully".
- Throughout the album, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, akin to a storybook character hiding a knife: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You've the podium of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Ears
This album represents popular music on a grand level, an ambitious grasp for capital-A Art in an era of impending AI-generated blankness. It rejects solipsism in favor of sublime transcendence, creating a dramatic spectacle that skillfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant source of buried treasure that requires patience to fully explore but doesn't feels like a chore. While other big releases of the year seemed like feasting on meal, this record offers a lavish banquet at which the characters around the table, some intoxicated on sacred wine, flit from conversations about historical figures, the profound sensation of heartbreaking grief, and shared stories about useless men. In essence, it's a modern-day theatrical production from music's most endlessly creative practitioner.
