June 17th, 2014 
James Shotwell 
Artist: Lana Del Rey
Album: Ultraviolence
Genre: Pop
Lana Del Rey pulls no punches on Ultraviolence, her first release since the fall of 2012. After essentially spending two years working on new material the woman who was Born To Die has reemerged more confident and heartbroken than ever before, and she has brought along a strung out rock and roll sound produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach to accompany her pain.
If you did not like Lana Del Rey in 2012 you will almost certainly not find her any more enjoyable in 2014. Lana has not switched her formula or changed her style on Ultraviolence, but rather dug deeper into the annals of classic pop and soul to find more enticing ways of conveying her journeys through heartache to fans. This largely entails the introduction of live band accompaniment, along with a subtle reduction in the use of strings and related orchestral samples. I’ve been telling people it’s kind of what you think would happen if Lana hopped in a time machine and attempted radio success in the mid-1970s, only with the sex appeal of a lounge singer in the world’s most popular speakeasy.
The front half of Ultraviolence is heavily populated by songs that made their way to the public in advance of the album’s official release. Aside from “Cruel World,” which opens the record on a fittingly melancholy note, “Ultraviolence,” “Shades Of Cool,” “Brooklyn Baby,” and the ever-sultry “West Coast” have been heard and discussed at length. I will say it’s a bit disappointing to hear them all lumped together here, as it makes initial spins of the album far less interesting than one might hope, but they do play surprisingly well together in spite of the fact no two sound all that similar. “West Coast” is by far the funkiest of the bunch, with “Shades Of Cool” taking the ballad crown (as well as most likely to be parodied in the future, thanks to the high notes that guide the hook). The title track is the true standout of the bunch, and truth be told it’s one of the album’s finest moments overall.
“Sad Girl” offers a cross between western sensibilities and lo-fi jazz that helps usher in the back half of Ultraviolence with a sense of mystery. Other than the electric guitar parts that command attention almost as often as Lana, the majority of the album’s sound changes from track to track. It’s always relatively melancholy and yes, there is a sense of everything being a bit grandiose throughout, but Lana finds ways to make each track feel unique and – in a way – self-contained. Where Born To Die played like one long look at the life of a beautiful and lost young woman, Ultraviolence offers a collection of moments from a life lived to the fullest. This song talks about being the woman on the side, for example, while “Fucked My Way To The Top” addresses those who cannot accept a woman being successful on her own terms. Each song flows into the next with almost flawless cohesion, but any single track could just as easily stand on its own, and therein lies one of the most beautiful aspects to Lana Del Rey’s latest creation.
The true gem in the Ultraviolence crown is without a doubt the anthemic “Money Power Glory.” Clocking in at just over four and a half minutes in length, this pulsating ode to the finer things in life might as well be the subject of a college class called Lana Del Rey 101. It’s a slow, sexy, cocky quasi-anthem that finds Lana making it known exactly what she wants to get out of her experience at the top. If this song is not a number one single by the end of 2014 it will only be due to the fact that a shorter, likely uptempo dance remix of the song has been pushed to radio instead.
Before all is said and done, Lana makes a rare misstep by selecting two of her weakest songs to date to close her latest album. “Guns And Roses” takes the songwriter’s tongue-in-cheek lyricism to a sappy and melodramatic extreme that toes the line on being downright laughable, but it’s actually “Florida Kilos” that proves to be the biggest head-scratcher. Amidst an album wrought with pain and heartache Del Rey chooses to close things with a borderline upbeat song about drugs and love on America’s South East Coast. It’s such a jarring departure from the rest of the record that it almost feels tacked on, as if Lana or someone connected with her felt the album needed one more song to be ‘long enough’ or otherwise complete, but never gave a second thought to how well it played with the rest of the album’s material.
Putting aside those grievances, which admittedly are quite small in the grand scheme of things, Ultraviolence proves to be one of the most interesting and heartbreaking records to surface this year. Lana Del Rey has stood firm in the face of critics, further exploring a sound many thought would never catch on, and after two years away has delivered a record that will no doubt be stuck on repeat for longtime fans and new listeners alike for many months to come. I’m not sure how she continues to find ways to leverage the same basic idea again and again in ways that feel new each time, but I certainly hope she does not call it quits anytime soon.
Score: 8.5/10
Written by: James Shotwell Follow @utgjames
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