At first glance, this work could seem more like a difficult scholarly examination rather than a new pop project by a musician whose previous single featured a global pop star. Broken into 4 distinct parts and sung in thirteen tongues, we have a dizzying symphonic work exploring female mystery, religious transcendence, and corporal transformation, frequently by way of the lens of various women saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic handled with raw honesty on another major 2025 album—is launched heavenward here, carried by the lush sound of a full orchestra and contributions from an award-winning composer within a vast roll call of contributors. The pure daring alone makes the efforts of other artists look rather laughable.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that this album succeeds in transcend dry intellectual chin-stroking feels almost a miracle, with sole praise belonging to the artist. While it's not the first time project to fuse the past and modern styles, the ambitions feel much greater here, and the tightrope walk more pronounced. The element that really raises this fourth release, beyond its multilayered tunes, rich arrangements, and engrained drama, is an essential spirit of fun. Similar to the iconic artist during her peak, you find a captivating sense to Rosalía's voice that pulls you into its tornado. When she is breaking hearts apart, the listener nevertheless want to stay alongside her for the ride.
A Prime Moment of Joy
That exuberant energy shines brightly on the stunning Italian song about Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool for several moments. Then, all the music drops silent, and we hear a gleeful laugh followed by a comment before a comically exaggerated string crescendo thuds down with comedic impact. The song then shifts into the frenetic track driven by galloping strings, a powerful choral group, and a surprise role from the artist herself.
"The charm of this album is that the listener never quite know—nor wish to predict—where you will go next."
Almost each track finishes in a totally different place from how it started. A track examines the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a delicate orchestration only to disintegrating into electronic cacophony. Elsewhere, a song echoing her previous trap-infused work starts off moody and sinister, with prowling beats, before sudden flamenco handclaps and a heavenly choir arrive to smooth the song's rough edges.
The Bridge Of Experiment & Pop
A key achievement on the album involves navigating the gap between radical innovation and mainstream appeal. This is little surprise that it has become her highest-charting work to break into the Top 5 of key charts: at its core a collection of utterly catchy pop songs. One track performed primarily in the English language swells around a chorus that seems to collect increasingly nagging hooks while it spirals skyward. That feat gets echoed by a different expansive ballad that grows and constricts, intertwining multiple tunes as a complex weave.
- A waltz-like song charms with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and an anthemic hook.
- In its words, it shares the pop culture honesty of contemporary heartbreak songs, lambasting an ex- partner described as an "psychological terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals have a sharp smile, like a storybook character hiding a blade: "Top prize in acting like a scoundrel / You have won the trophy of letdown."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul
This album represents pop on a maximalist scale, a hungry grasp for high Art in an era of looming AI-generated sameness. It rejects self-absorption in favor of sublime elevation, crafting an over-the-top spectacle that skillfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant source of hidden treasure that requires patience to fully explore but doesn't feels like a chore. Where some big pop albums of the year felt like a meager meal, Lux is a sumptuous feast at which the characters at it, perhaps intoxicated on holy wine, flutter between discussions about historical figures, the galvanizing sensation of soul-shattering sadness, and shared gossip about hopeless men. It is a modern-day theatrical production from pop's most restlessly creative practitioner.
