Whatever else you think about Lana Del Rey, she knows her vision and has a distinctive delivery style. She ticks all the boxes on this new album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club: love with an edge of desperation to it, vocals floating over muted instrumentation--like a ghost haunting each song, somehow timeless and nostalgic, and yet pointing to very current issues.

The theme of travel has been a fixture in Del Rey's work in the past and finds its way into this latest album. However, in the past it's been all about hopping on the back of a motorcycle with her hair whipping in the wind down a coastal highway in California or driving to the beach. This time around she's thinking of ditching California ( "Let Me Love You Like A Woman") to daydream about living in the Midwest, "We can dance in the purple rain" (a nice little MN shout out in "Let Me Love You Like A Women"), she's "on the run with you" in title track "Chemtrails Over the Country Club" and she's in Lincoln, Nebraska in "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" where she says all this travel is "just wanderlust."

That movement isn't just lyrical, the nostalgic femme fatale sound is getting some rust belt dustiness. Besides working with Jack Antonoff (producer of Lorde, St. Vincent, Taylor Swift), Del Rey brings in the Highway Queen, Nikki Lane. Lane not only helps out co-writing "Breaking Up Slowly" but adds her twang and vocals to the track. Apparently, they worked so well together they have more songs to release (and with another Del Rey album coming out June 1, there may be an Americana Del Rey in store).

In a year where everyone was stuck at home daydreaming about where they would go once they could, this wanderlust album hits all the right notes.

External Link

Lana Del Rey - official website

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