2xLP CRYSTAL CLEAR VINYL

If there’s one thing apparent from the last decade of Rosalía’s career, it’s that conventions are something to be deeply understood and then swiftly broken. Launching herself into the public eye with her 2018 opus El Mal Querer, the Catalonian visionary has spent the best part of a decade reworking traditions in her image: on Los Ángeles and El Mal Querer she dealt flamenco’s palos a new hand before cutting the dancefloor apart with 2022’s abrasive Motomami. But if Motomami was her at her most coarse and minimal, then Lux, her fourth album, arrives as its contradiction: this is Rosalía at her most grandiose, maximal, astral -- and with an entire orchestra at her fingertips.

The story here is of the feminine and the divine, a constantly shifting pair of ideas that morph through lenses of faith, love and conflict. A superb opening trio of songs contemplate the space between heaven, earth, and the body: bloodshed and greed clash with doves and saints on opener “Sexo, Violencia y Llantas” before “Reliquia” and “Divinize” reconceptualize the body as a divine vessel. On the dramatic “De Madrugá,” the cross is a spiritual magnetizer -- elsewhere, God becomes an ever-folding avalanche, a stalker, a boundless force for redemption. This divine multiplicity forms much of the album's spine. On “Porcelana," the divine narrator plays with being both "nothing" and "the light of the world," while the gorgeous “Magnolias” converts Rosalía’s funeral into a joyous requiem, her body ascending to the stars as gasoline, tears, and red wine soak into her coffin. Even the album’s cover washes itself in this contested water: the singer folds her arms to her body under nun-like attire -- perhaps comforted, perhaps constrained.

Each of the album’s 18 tracks are inspired by a saintly figure from history, ranging from Italy's Saint Clare of Assisi to Taoist master Sun Bu’er. In this infusion of stories, Rosalía plays both architect and guide: she imbues the album with this richness of lived experience, but one that allows her to glide between cultures with ease, expressing the universal through the intensely personal. Any record shooting for this scope runs a critical risk of losing focus, but her tireless curiosity and distinct vision let her stretch the canvas to its limits. She sings here in 13 languages, weaves in elements from jungle, hip-hop, and classic Italian arias, and uses an orchestra as a representation of her own intrusive thoughts. “Novia Robot,” a satire of a company making robot girlfriends, sits between a devastating modernization of the story of Jeanne D’Arc (“Jeanne”), and a three-artist orchestral rhumba beaming God’s forgiveness onto sinners. Yet with an auteur’s hand, this Frankenstein-like mission seems utterly effortless -- natural, even, as if these pieces were always meant to be. The result is an album so expansive that the edges are almost entirely out of sight. Fearless, maximalist, and laden with emotion, Lux is a work worthy of both the Heavens and the Earth.

Mov I    
A1        Sexo, Violencia Y Llantas
A2        Reliquia
A3        Divinize
A4        Porcelana
A5        Mio Cristo
Mov II    
B1        Berghain
B2        La Perla
B3        Mundo Nuevo
B4        De Madrugá
Mov III    
C1        Dios Es Un Stalker
C2        La Yugular
C3        Focu ‘ranni
C4        Sauvignon Blanc
C5        Jeanne
Mov IV    
D1        Novia Robot
D2        La Rumba Del Perdón
D3        Memória
D4        Magnolias