A notable departure from her orchestral and hip-hop debut, the album features prominent string based instrumentations.
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Photograph: Pola Scan Alexis Petridis Thu 12 Jun 2014 11.08 EDT T here was a time, around the release of Lana Del Reys last album, that the chances of Lana Del Rey releasing another album seemed very slim. It had something to do with the way that, apparently beaten down by the controversies surrounding her background and her ability or otherwise to actually sing, she kept implying that she was going to quit music. But the sheer repetitiousness of the lyrics in which one bad-boy boyfriend after another was pined for, and Del Rey either put her red dress on or took her red dress off with the frequency of a woman having a crisis in the changing rooms at TK Maxx gave the impression that what the former Lizzie Grant had created was not a character, but a caricature. Who knows what changed her mind Perhaps the dawning realisation that all the online hipster snark about a perceived lack of authenticity isnt necessarily a barrier to selling 7m copies of your album, or perhaps the growing belief that she still had more to say. ![]() It takes 50 seconds of Ultraviolence for the first bad-boy boyfriend to turn up you got your gun and you like to party and 80 before our old friend the red dress heaves into view. More troublingly, Del Rey still seems to inhabit a terrible alternate universe where literally every woman you meet is either pitiful or horrible. The former category variously includes the prostitute pathetically in love with one of her tricks (Sad Girl), the woman who likes being slapped about and simperingly declares youre my cult leader to her abuser (Ultraviolence), a thick hipster mooning after an indie-band guitarist (Brooklyn Baby) and a succession of ladies professing their undying devotion to callous drug addicts (I dont mean nothing compared to your drugs Ill wait for you, mews Pretty When I Cry). The latter features the grasping, venal bitch of Money, Power, Glory and the protagonist of the self-explanatory Fucked My Way to the Top. Its perhaps worth noting that Del Rey is an equal-opportunities misanthropist, and all the men in her songs appear to be arseholes, but theres no escaping the fact that her focus is on the ladies: the men are just shadowy supporting characters who largely seem to exist in order to highlight how awful her women are. On the one hand, its pretty persistently reiterated; on the other, the music does its best to make you ignore it. Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence Crack And VeerDel Rey and her new producer, the Black Keys Dan Auerbach, have toned down that albums tendency toward orchestral bombast, replacing it with a beautiful, gauzy shimmer of tremolo guitars and reverb-drenched drums, with a lot of attention clearly paid to subtle details: the scamper of brushed snare that propels you into the chorus of Shades of Cool; the tension caused at the start of Pretty When I Cry by allowing the vocal to crack and veer off-key; the way the queasy change of tempo in West Coast is heralded by a musical quotation from the Beatles And I Love Her, as if to emphasise the gulf between that songs sweetly uncomplicated romance and the boozily dysfunctional relationship depicted here. Every chorus clicks, the melodies are uniformly beautiful, and they soar and swoop, the better to demonstrate Del Reys increased confidence in her voice. Its all so well done that the fact that the whole album proceeds at the same, somnambulant pace scarcely matters. Indeed, the only musical drawback turns out to be region-specific. The tune of Old Money echoes Nino Rotas Theme from Zefferellis 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet. You can see why theyve chosen it what better way to conjure an atmosphere of doomed, cinematic romance but, for British listeners of a certain age at least, it presents something of a problem, largely because Nino Rotas Theme from Romeo and Juliet is the music that used to play in the background during Simon Batess Our Tune. This certainly lends the track an aura of doomed romance, although not perhaps the one Del Rey was after: And then, in 1982, Jill contracted shingles and, well, things went from bad to worse Of course, Del Rey wasnt to know that: when Bates was daily regaling the UK with tales of suburban woe, she was an infant on the other side of the world, and, besides, she was probably extremely busy putting her red Babygro on andor taking it off. Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence Full Hour InBut shes definitely to blame for its big failing, which isnt so much that its view of the world is weird and unpleasant plenty of rock and pop music can claim that distinction but that its relentless and monotonous, too: you dont have to be a radical feminist to feel wearied after a full hour in the company of Ultraviolences collection of alternately feeble and awful women. ![]() This article was also amended because an earlier version said hoves into view. Topics Lana Del Rey Alexis Petridiss album of the week Pop and rock reviews Reuse this content comments ( 0 ) Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion. Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence Archive Facebook TwitterFilm Books Music Art design TV radio Stage Classical Games News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle About us Contact us Complaints corrections SecureDrop Work for us Privacy policy Cookie policy Terms conditions Help All topics All writers Digital newspaper archive Facebook Twitter Newsletters Advertise with us Guardian Labs Search jobs Back to top 2020 Guardian News Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
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