Last Friday, Lana Del Rey’s seventh studio album Chemtrails Over The Country Club was released to wide acclaim. She’s shedding away the trip hop, sadcore anthems that we all know her by to bring us something rawer – something more reflective and atmospheric. The album is representative of a more mature Lana Del Rey, who has opened up about her emotional vulnerabilities and leaned into the whole singer-songwriter thing.
The record opens with “White Dress,” a somber tune referencing The White Stripes and Kings of Leon under jagged vocals and ethereal vamps from her band. Like “Venice Bitch” from her previous album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, this song really feels like those last days of summer that rush by in a daze. “Chemtrails Over The Country Club” follows with some fanservice for the SoCal astrologist suburbanites, taking it back to the Born to Die days with lines like “Wearin’ our jewels in the swimming pool / Me and my sister just playin’ it cool.” Americana is a big theme in Lana’s music, and this album really makes it known with songs such as “Tulsa Jesus Freak” that paints a picturesque middle America despite her New York and Los Angeles homes. The 4th track, “Let Me Love You Like A Woman,” was released as a single last year with a cover photo that was probably made in PicsArt. The song melds into a more sentimental tracks with its lyrics, “Let me shine like a diamond / Let me be who I’m meant to be” that resonate with the older, wiser musician she has grown into. Having been a Lana fan for nearly a decade (shudder), it’s refreshing to hear songs like these that can express sentiment without edginess and can be yearning without being male-centered. “Wild At Heart” closes out Side A of Chemtrails – it’s another L.A. anthem that embraces free spirit Americana, almost like Ride from her Paradise EP.
The second side of the album starts with “Dark But Just A Game.” This track is a haunting poem where Lana sings about an unglamorous rise to stardom over dark yet dynamic jazz grooves. When I first heard this song, something about the choruses reminded me of her unreleased material from the Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant days. The next two songs – “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” and “Yosemite” –bring attention back to the folksy Americana roots of the album while showcasing Lana’s dynamic vocal range from husky crooning to lush harmonies. “Breaking Up Slowly” follows, and it’s a really vulnerable performance from Lana and country singer-songwriter Nikki Lane that evokes the atmospheric instrumentals of Ultraviolence. This track and “Dance Till We Die” namedrop a pantheon of women singer-songwriters like Tammy Wynette, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Stevie Nicks – and Lana clearly has some conflictions about comparisons to these legends of music. “Troubled by my circumstance / Burdened by the weight of fame” she sings in “Dance Till We Die,” almost as a cry for their advice as pedal steel guitar wails in the background. This song wouldn’t be out-of-place in a Nashville honky-tonk; I can imagine a horn section accompanying the up-tempo shift in the last minute. To close out Chemtrails, Lana brought in Zella Day and Weyes Blood to cover Joni Mitchell’s “For Free.” It’s a great tribute to the lineage of Californian singer-songwriters that Lana has no doubt staked her spot in.
Overall, I came into the album looking for the diverse sonic landscapes of Norman Fucking Rockwell!, but was glad to find sentimental songs that tell us more about how Lana Del Rey is continuing to grow into her artistic life. The tracks begin to meld together musically over the second side of the album, which I see as a success in giving the album its own sound. This album is not for the Lana fans who are still bitter that she hasn’t released another Born To Die spin-off, but truthfully that direction is long gone – and the music is better for it. It’s nice to hear her reflections on family, artistic, and romantic life while much of her audience is also grappling with the “real world.” Her fans have grown alongside her music, with each of her “eras” influencing personal aesthetics. While I miss seeing her perform songs like “Video Games” or “Serial Killer” earlier in her career, I can’t wait to camp outside arenas again to hear the tracks from Chemtrails Over The Country Club live.
