LANA DEL REY Chemtrails Over The Country Club
(Polydor)
Few modern artists have had as tempestuous and rollercoaster a relationship with their own celebrity as Lana Del Rey. A self-made star of sorts (all-conquering 2011 breakthrough single ‘Video Games’ was, after all, first revealed as a casual internet upload before being picked up by a major label and blasted into the stratosphere), the 35-year-old has built one of the most recognisable and singular personal brands out there and yet faced backlash at almost every turn. There was the initial furore and social media slamming following a shaky debut public performance on SNL (sample tweet: “Stayed up to watch Lana Del Rey on #SNL only to discover she’s basically a drunk Julia Roberts trying to remember her own lyrics”), and a hotlydebated 2014 interview in which she declared that she “wish[ed she] was dead already”. With 2019’s superlative ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ - almost certainly her greatest LP to date - it felt like the tides had turned unanimously in her favour, but the record was swiftly followed by a rambling Instagram post that sparked controversy over its potentially racially-insensitive tone. That incident was likely why, upon the reveal of seventh album ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’’s artwork, Lana accompanied the picture with an unprompted defence of its cast, declaring, “In 11 years working I have always been extremely inclusive without even trying to. My best friends are rappers, my boyfriends have been rappers.” Huh.
record of their career. And also perhaps goes a way to explaining the tone of the album: an elegiac, introverted release that feels more like a late-career meditation than the victory lap for ‘NFR!’. Of course, the singer has never exactly been one for uptempo bangers, but at her best there’s a defiance and sass to Lana that stops the swoons from drifting too far into the ether; here, however, the confidence feels diminished, the rich production of its predecessor replaced by something thinner, sadder. On single ‘Let Me Love You Like A Woman’, she declares “I come from a small town far away / I only mention it 'cause I'm ready to leave LA”; on the heart-tugging, fingerpicked ‘Dark But Just A Game’, it’s “I don’t even want what’s mine, much less the fame.” Sandwiched between the two, ‘Wild At Heart’’s more familiar swells and lyrical tropes feel like a flashback to a different era. Opener ‘White Dress’ - a pianobased reflection on “a simpler time,” pre-fame, working the night shift as a waitress - sets the tone for an album that grapples with the singer’s current situation and seems unsure of where it wants to end up. It paints an evocatively nostalgic picture that will particularly resonate after a year spent reminiscing (her determination to cram the phrase “men in music business conference” into about three syllables, meanwhile, is either brilliant or awful and we’re still not entirely sure which). Elsewhere, we get two guest turns on the romantically maudlin ‘Breaking Up Slowly’, featuring country singer Nikki Lane, and the Weyes Blood and Zella Day-featuring closer ‘For Free’: a cover of Joni Mitchell’s 1970 original that provides a swirling, emotive highlight. In the track, the protagonist (sung by Lana) who “plays for fortunes”, dripping in jewels, staying in lavish hotels, looks on at a street performer caught up in his own world, not thinking about fame and money. The undercurrent, you sense, is that his situation might be preferable after all. As the album’s conclusion, you wonder if it could also be Lana trying to tell us something. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Dark But Just A Game’, ‘Chem Trails’
ROYAL BLOOD Typhoons (Warner)
Part of the joy, one imagines, of growing popularity as an artist, is the challenge of sounding ‘bigger’, first working out how to fill academies with sound, then arenas, tents followed by festival main stages. Royal Blood were already racking up the decibels - and audience numbers - by the time their self-titled debut was unleashed in 2014; follow-up ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ then had them perfecting their take on riff-heavy rock that proved a radio mainstay and playing on bigger and bigger stages. If there’s no way ‘up’ for the South Coast pair to travel, then a sidestep it must be. And ‘Typhoons’ largely sees Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher turn the amps down a few notches and the keys up - with mixed success. The duo’s strength thus far has laid in their consistency. Like having spag bol for dinner, Royal Blood have never been particularly avant-garde in their approach, but their big, bold, solid rock riffs matched with the odd shout-along chorus has always been a winning formula; the simplest of ingredients but you know what you’re in for, you leave satisfied. And this is the crux of why ‘Typhoons’ occasionally misses the mark: the space created by the pair’s more chilled sonic approach isn’t filled. The songs here may be more melodic, more complex even on paper, but in reality there’s little there to truly grab hold of. The bluesy strut attempted by opener ‘Trouble’s Coming’ is tempered by its synth; the high-pitched backing vocals on ‘Oblivion’ don’t sound deliberately humorous enough to land without an awkward thump, and ‘Who Needs Friends’ - aka rich guy in LA 101 - would have fit perfectly on a mid-’10s Robbie WIlliams album, but Mike has neither the swagger nor tabloid-amplified self-awareness to pull it off.
ews Which is all to say that Lana has more to prove on ‘Chemtrails…’ than an artist reasonably should on the follow-up to the most lauded
That said, the Josh Homme-produced ‘Boilermaker’ finds some vastly more interesting territory for the duo to head towards, almost industrial in sound and with some grit behind it, and although the 180-degree turn to piano ballad ‘All We Have Is Now’ is at first whiplash-inducing, the intimate closer provides a rare glimpse of something tangible on the record. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Boilermaker’
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