At first glance, this album might appear more like an arduous scholarly challenge than the latest popular music record from an artist who just had a previous hit featured an international pop icon. Split into four different sections and sung in 13 languages, we have a dizzying orchestral-influenced album exploring female mystery, spiritual ascent, and corporal change, frequently through the perspective of different women saints. The dissolution of a relationship—a theme treated with raw honesty on another major 2025 album—is launched upwards here, carried by the constant presence of a major symphony orchestra and contributions from a Pulitzer-winning composer within a long list of collaborators. Its sheer audacity alone makes the efforts of other artists seem rather modest.
Transcending Academic Exercise
The fact that Lux succeeds in escape overly academic posturing is nothing short of a miracle, and full praise going to Rosalía. Although it's not her first album to alchemize the past with modern styles, the ambitions feel far greater on Lux, with the balancing act more dramatic. The element that truly elevates this fourth album, outside of its multilayered tunes, rich compositions, and engrained theatricality, is a core sense of playfulness. Much like the legendary artist during her height, you find a wondrous quality to the vocalist's singing that pulls the listener into its tornado. When she's tearing hearts apart, the listener nevertheless want to be right there through the ride.
A Prime Example of Exuberance
This exuberant energy shines brightly during the stunning Italian ballad about Saint Clare. It bathes in a sorrowful whirlpool over more than four minutes. Then, all the music falls away, to reveal there's a gleeful laugh followed by a comment prior to a hilariously over-the-top string crescendo crashes down like cartoonish force. The track then shifts into the wild track featuring galloping orchestration, an imposing choral group, and a surprise role from none other than Björk.
"The magic with Lux lies in the listener rarely exactly know—or even want to predict—what you is going next."
Nearly every song finishes at a totally different point than how it began. A track examines the transient trappings of fame with a featherlight orchestration before disintegrating in electronic chaos. Another, a cut echoing the artist's earlier rhythmic style starts off dark and brooding, featuring prowling vocals, until sudden flamenco handclaps and an angelic choir enter to soften the song's rough corners.
The Bridge Of Experiment and Accessibility
A key achievement on Lux involves straddling the line between radical innovation and mainstream appeal. It is little surprise that it has achieved the artist's highest-charting release to break into the Top 5 of major markets: its heart contains a collection of truly catchy pop songs. One track performed primarily in English swells around a chorus that feels to gather increasingly infectious hooks as it spirals upward. That feat gets repeated on another expansive ballad that expands and constricts, intertwining layered tunes as a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused song charms with its jaunty, Disney-adjacent flair and an anthemic chorus.
- In its words, it aligns with cultural honesty of other breakup anthems, eviscerating a former partner described as an "emotional terrorist".
- Across these tracks, the vocals carry a painted-on edge, akin to a fairy-tale character hiding a blade: "Gold medal in being a motherfucker / You have won the trophy of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Soul
This album is popular music on a maximalist level, an ambitious reach for high artistry amid of looming artificial blankness. It eschews self-absorption in favor of glorious transcendence, crafting a dramatic drama that skillfully controls its built-in excess. It is an abundant well of buried treasure that requires patience to completely mine but never feels like a chore. Where some big releases of 2025 felt like feasting on scraps, Lux is a lavish feast where the characters at the table, some tipsy on sacred wine, flutter from conversations about historical figures, the profound feeling of heartbreaking sadness, and shared stories about useless partners. It is a modern-day theatrical production from pop's truly endlessly creative visionary.
