At first glance, Lux could seem more like an arduous scholarly quiz than a new popular music album by a musician who just had a last single was a collaboration with a global pop icon. Split into four different sections and voiced in thirteen tongues, it is a dizzying symphonic album investigating feminine mystery, spiritual ascent, and bodily change, often via the prism of different women saints. The dissolution of a relationship—a topic handled with grounded openness on another major 2025 album—is launched heavenward on this record, supported by the lush presence of a full orchestra and input from a Pulitzer-winning composer among a vast list of contributors. Its sheer audacity alone makes the work of contemporary pop stars look quite laughable.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux manages to escape dry intellectual chin-stroking feels almost miraculous, and sole praise going to Rosalía. While it's not the first time project to fuse the past with modern styles, its ambitions feel much higher on Lux, with the tightrope walk far more precarious. The element that truly elevates her fourth album, beyond its multilayered melodies, rich compositions, and engrained theatricality, is an essential spirit of joy. Much like the iconic Björk at her height, there is a wondrous sense to the vocalist's voice which sweeps you into its tornado. When she is tearing hearts apart, the listener nevertheless want to stay right there for the ride.
A Prime Example of Joy
That playful spirit comes forth brightly on a stirring Italian song inspired by a saint. It luxuriates in a string-drenched melancholy over several moments. Suddenly, everything falls away, to reveal there's a gleeful laugh and a declaration before a hilariously exaggerated string crescendo thuds down with cartoonish force. The track immediately segues into the frenetic single driven by galloping orchestration, a powerful choir, and a cameo appearance from none other than herself.
"The charm of this album is that the listener never quite understand—or even want to know—where it is going next."
Almost every track ends in a totally different place from where it started. One moment explores the fleeting trappings of celebrity with a featherlight symphony only to collapsing in electronic chaos. Another, a cut echoing her earlier trap-infused style begins off moody and brooding, featuring menacing vocals, before fluttering flamenco handclaps and an angelic choir arrive to soften the song's jagged edges.
The Balance Of Art and Pop
A key balancing act on the album is navigating the gap between radical innovation and broad accessibility. This is no surprise that the album has achieved her first work to crack the Top 5 of key markets: its heart contains a suite of utterly catchy hits. One track sung primarily in English builds around a chorus that feels to gather more and more nagging melodies while it spins upward. This trick is repeated by another expansive track that expands and constricts, weaving layered melodies like an intricate tapestry.
- A waltz-like song seduces with its playful, Disney-adjacent drama and a chant-along hook.
- Lyrically, it shares the cultural honesty of other breakup songs, lambasting an ex- partner labeled an "psychological bully".
- Across the album, the vocals carry a painted-on smile, akin to a storybook figure hiding a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul
Lux is pop on a maximalist level, an ambitious grasp for capital-A Art amid of looming artificial sameness. It eschews solipsism for glorious elevation, crafting an over-the-top drama that skillfully controls its inherent ridiculousness. This is an abundant source of hidden treasure that requires patience to fully mine but doesn't seem like a chore. While some major releases of 2025 seemed like a meager scraps, this record offers a sumptuous feast at which the guests around the table, some tipsy on holy wine, flit from conversations about ancient saints, the galvanizing sensation of heartbreaking grief, and common gossip about hopeless partners. In essence, it's a modern-day musical from music's most endlessly inventive practitioner.
