On the surface, this album could seem closer to a difficult scholarly challenge than the latest popular music project by an artist who just had a previous hit was a collaboration with an international K-pop star. Split across four distinct movements and voiced in 13 tongues, we have a head-spinning symphonic album that delves into feminine mystique, religious ascent, and physical change, often through the prism of different saintly figures. The end of a love affair—a theme treated with raw openness elsewhere—soars skyward here, carried by the lush sound of a major symphony orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning songwriter among an extensive list of contributors. The pure audacity alone renders the efforts of contemporary pop stars look rather modest.
Rising Above Academic Pretense
The fact that this album manages to transcend overly academic chin-stroking is almost a miracle, with sole praise going to the artist. While this is not the first time project to alchemize historical sounds and the present, the ambitions are much higher on Lux, and the tightrope walk far more precarious. The element that really raises this fourth release, beyond its multilayered tunes, dense arrangements, and engrained drama, is an essential sense of playfulness. Much like the iconic Björk at her height, you find a captivating quality to the vocalist's voice that pulls you up in its tornado. When she is breaking hearts apart, you still desire to stay right there through the ride.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
That playful energy comes forth brightly on the stunning piano-led song about a saint. It luxuriates in a string-drenched melancholy over several moments. Then, all the music falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous laugh followed by a declaration before a comically exaggerated orchestral crescendo crashes down like comedic force. The song immediately segues to the wild single driven by racing orchestration, an imposing choir, and a surprise appearance from none other than Björk.
"The magic with this album lies in you never quite understand—nor want to know—what you will go to next."
Nearly each song ends in a completely distinct point from where it began. A track explores the fleeting nature of fame over a delicate symphony before collapsing into electronic cacophony. Another, a cut echoing the artist's previous rhythmic style starts out dark and brooding, with prowling beats, before fluttering flamenco handclaps and a heavenly choir enter to smooth its jagged edges.
The Balance Of Experiment & Pop
A key balancing act of Lux involves navigating the line between bold experimentation and broad accessibility. It is no surprise that it has achieved her highest-charting release to crack the upper reaches of key charts: at its core a suite of utterly undeniable pop songs. One track sung primarily in English builds around a chorus that feels to collect increasingly infectious melodies while it spins upward. That trick gets repeated on another expansive ballad that grows and constricts, intertwining layered tunes like an intricate tapestry.
- A dance-infused song seduces with its playful, theatrical flair and an anthemic chorus.
- In its words, it shares with pop culture honesty of other heartbreak songs, eviscerating a former lover labeled an "emotional bully".
- Throughout the album, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, like a storybook character hiding a blade: "Top prize in being a motherfucker / You have the podium of letdown."
An Opulent Banquet for the Soul
Lux represents pop on a grand level, an ambitious grasp for high artistry in an era of impending artificial sameness. It rejects solipsism for glorious elevation, crafting a dramatic drama that masterfully controls its own built-in ridiculousness. It is an abundant source of buried treasure that takes patience to completely mine but never seem like a chore. Where other major releases of the year seemed like feasting on meal, Lux is a lavish banquet at which the characters around it, perhaps intoxicated on holy drink, flutter between discussions about historical figures, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about useless men. It is a contemporary musical from music's truly endlessly inventive practitioner.
