On the surface, this work could seem more like a challenging academic examination rather than a new popular music project from a musician who just had a last hit featured an international K-pop star. Split across four separate sections and performed in 13 tongues, we have a head-spinning classical-tinged album that delves into female mystique, spiritual ascent, and corporal change, frequently through the lens of various women saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a theme treated with raw openness on another major 2025 album—soars heavenward here, supported by the constant sound of a full symphony orchestra and work from an award-winning composer within a vast roll call of contributors. The pure audacity alone makes the work of contemporary artists seem quite laughable.
Rising Above Scholarly Exercise
The fact that this album manages to escape overly intellectual chin-stroking feels nearly miraculous, and sole credit belonging to the artist. While this is not the first time album to fuse historical sounds and the present, its ambitions are far greater here, and the tightrope walk more precarious. What really raises this fourth album, beyond its complex melodies, dense compositions, and inherent theatricality, is an essential sense of playfulness. Similar to the iconic Björk at her peak, there is a captivating sense to Rosalía's singing that pulls the listener up in its tornado. Even when she's breaking your heart in two, the listener still want to stay alongside her through the ride.
A Signature Example of Joy
This exuberant spirit shines brightly on the stirring Italian song about a saint. It luxuriates in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four moments. Then, everything drops away, to reveal there's a gleeful laugh followed by a declaration prior to a hilariously exaggerated string crescendo crashes down like cartoonish impact. The song immediately shifts to the wild track featuring galloping strings, an imposing choir, and a cameo appearance from the artist Björk.
"The magic of this album lies in you rarely quite know—nor want to predict—what you will go next."
Nearly each track ends in a totally different place from where it started. A track explores the transient nature of fame over a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating in digital cacophony. Elsewhere, a song that recalls the artist's earlier trap-infused style starts off moody and brooding, featuring prowling beats, before fluttering traditional handclaps and a heavenly chorus arrive to soften the song's rough edges.
The Balance Of Experiment & Accessibility
A key achievement of Lux involves straddling the gap between radical experimentation and broad accessibility. It is little surprise that it has achieved the artist's first work to break into the Top 5 of key charts: its heart contains a suite of truly undeniable hits. A song sung primarily in the English language builds on a refrain that seems to collect more and more nagging hooks while it spins skyward. That trick is repeated on another expansive ballad that expands and constricts, weaving layered tunes as a complex tapestry.
- A waltz-like song seduces with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and a chant-along chorus.
- In its words, it shares with pop culture impact of other breakup anthems, lambasting a former partner described as an "psychological terrorist".
- Across the album, the vocals carry a painted-on smile, akin to a storybook figure concealing a knife: "Gold medal in being a scoundrel / You've won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Feast for the Soul
Lux represents popular music on a grand level, a hungry reach for high artistry amid of impending artificial sameness. It eschews self-absorption for glorious transcendence, creating an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its inherent excess. It is an abundant well of buried treasure that requires patience to completely explore but never seem like a chore. While other big releases of the year felt like feasting on meal, this record is a sumptuous feast at which the characters around it, some tipsy on holy drink, flutter from conversations about ancient saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking sadness, and common gossip about useless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from pop's most restlessly creative visionary.
