At first glance, this work could seem closer to an arduous university quiz rather than a new popular music project by an artist whose last hit was a collaboration with a global K-pop icon. Divided across 4 separate movements and performed in 13 tongues, we have a head-spinning symphonic album investigating female mystique, spiritual ascent, and bodily transformation, often by way of the prism of different female saints. The dissolution of a love affair—a topic treated with grounded honesty elsewhere—is launched skyward on this record, buoyed by the lush presence of a major orchestra and input from an award-winning songwriter among an extensive roll call of collaborators. The pure ambition alone renders the work of contemporary artists seem quite modest.
Rising Above Academic Pretense
That Lux succeeds in transcend dry intellectual posturing is nearly a miracle, and sole credit belonging to the artist. While it's not her first project to alchemize the past with modern styles, the ambitions feel far higher here, with the balancing act more pronounced. What really elevates this fourth release, outside of its multilayered melodies, dense compositions, and engrained drama, is a core sense of joy. Much like the legendary artist during her height, there is a wondrous sense to the vocalist's singing that pulls the listener up in its tornado. Even when she's tearing hearts in two, you still want to be alongside her through the journey.
A Prime Moment of Joy
This exuberant spirit comes forth brightly on the stirring Italian ballad inspired by a saint. It bathes in a string-drenched melancholy for more than four moments. Suddenly, everything falls away, to reveal there's a spontaneous laugh and a declaration prior to a comically exaggerated string crescendo thuds in like cartoonish force. The song immediately shifts into the frenetic single featuring racing orchestration, a powerful choir, and a cameo role from none other than herself.
"The charm with Lux lies in you never exactly know—or even wish to know—what it will go to next."
Almost every track finishes at a completely different place from how it started. A track examines the fleeting trappings of fame with a delicate orchestration only to collapsing in digital cacophony. Another, a song echoing the artist's earlier rhythmic work starts out dark and sinister, featuring menacing beats, before sudden traditional handclaps and an angelic chorus arrive to smooth its rough edges.
The Balance Of Art & Accessibility
A key achievement on Lux involves straddling the gap between radical experimentation and broad accessibility. This is no surprise that it has become her highest-charting work to crack the upper reaches of key charts: at its core a collection of truly catchy hits. A song sung primarily in the English language builds on a chorus that feels to collect increasingly infectious melodies as it spins upward. That feat gets echoed by a different expansive track that grows and contracts, intertwining layered tunes like a complex tapestry.
- A dance-infused number seduces via its jaunty, theatrical flair and a chant-along chorus.
- In its words, it aligns with cultural honesty of contemporary breakup songs, lambasting a former lover labeled an "emotional terrorist".
- Throughout the album, the vocals carry a painted-on smile, akin to a fairy-tale character concealing a blade: "Gold medal in acting like a scoundrel / You've the podium of disappointment."
A Maximalist Banquet for the Ears
This album is pop on a grand level, a hungry reach for capital-A artistry in an era of impending AI-generated blankness. It rejects self-absorption for glorious transcendence, creating an over-the-top drama that masterfully controls its own inherent excess. It is a deep source of buried gems that takes time to fully explore but never seem like a chore. While other major releases of 2025 seemed like feasting on meal, Lux offers a lavish banquet at which the characters at it, perhaps tipsy on sacred wine, flutter between discussions about ancient figures, the profound feeling of heartbreaking grief, and common stories about hopeless men. It is a modern-day musical from pop's most restlessly creative visionary.
