Lana Del Rey. Ultraviolence (2014)

I thought I'd give a listen to LDR's new release, Ultraviolence.  I found Born To Die interesting and was curious as to what she had devised as a follow up.  I did not expect to be knocked on my butt by a major work of art.  Ultraviolence is a massive, immersive experience.  It's full of guilt, regret, arrogance, pain, longing, and a certain type of sour beauty.  I guess you could just play this in the background while tidying up your house or something, but for me it demanded the attention of a David Lynch movie, drawing me in deeper and deeper, filling me with the underlying anxiety that something tragic and disturbing was about to happen.

Ultraviolence can't be thought of as just a new collection of pop songs by Lizzie Grant.  It's an artwork that completely integrates sound, lyrics, and performance to create a vision of a world both glamorous and grim.  It's very Baudelairean in it's evocation of the old Spleen and Ideal concept.  

The sound on this disc is magnificent.  LDR's voice and the instruments are processed through a variety of reverbs and delays, so the music exists in these lush and expansive spaces, but every detail glimmers like a spark.  Some of the guitar sounds are so present, you'd swear guitarist/producer Dan Auerbach was right in the room with you.

By the time I heard the third track on the album, "Shades of Cool," I knew I was in the presence of a masterpiece.

Shades of Cool: