Chemtrails Over The Country Club

About

There’s a track on <i>Chemtrails Over the Country Club</i>—Lana Del Rey’s sixth full-length album and the follow-up to 2019’s <i>Norman F*****g Rockwell!</i>—that should have been heard earlier. “Yosemite” was originally written for 2017’s <i>Lust for Life</i>, but, in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that year, Del Rey revealed the song was “too happy” to make the cut. Its appearance is a neat summation of where you can expect to find the singer here. Total serenity might not have been achieved just yet, but across these 11 track, Del Rey, along with returning producer Jack Antonoff, finds something close to peace of mind, reflected in a softer, more intimate and pared-back sound. “Wild at Heart,” “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” and “Yosemite,” for example, all brim with (self-)acceptance. Returning to ”Yosemite” hints at something else, too: an artist looking back to make her next step forward. <i>Chemtrails</i> is scattered with references to its predecessor, from the “Venice Bitch”-reminiscent outro of the title track to “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” which might be seen as a companion piece to 2012 single “Ride.” Then there are the tracks that could easily have appeared on previous albums (“Tulsa Jesus Freak” wouldn’t be out of place on 2014’s dark-edged <i>Ultraviolence</i>) and lyrics we’ve heard before (“Dance Till We Die,” for example, references “Off to the Races” from her debut album <i>Born to Die</i>, while “Yosemite” calls back to the “candle in the wind” of <i>NFR!</i>'s “Mariners Apartment Complex”). Del Rey’s MO has always been to tweak and refine—rather than reinvent—her sound, bringing her ever closer to where she wants to be. <i>Chemtrails</i>, however, is the first time she’s brought so much of her past into that proce. As for where this album takes her? Somewhat unexpectedly towards country and folk inspired by the Midwest, rather than Del Rey’s beloved California; on “Tulsa Jesus Freak,” Del Rey pines after Arkansa. <i>Chemtrails Over the Country Club</i> makes no reference to the global pandemic in which it was partly created and released. And yet, amid a year of isolation, it was perhaps logical that one of this generation’s best songwriters would look inward. Here, Del Rey’s panoramic examination of America is replaced with something altogether more personal. On opener “White Dre,” she reflects on “a simpler time” when she was “only 19… Listening to White Stripes/When they were white hot/Listening to rock all day long.” It’s a time, more specifically, before she was famou. Nostalgia for it ebbs and flows as Del Rey’s vocals crack and strain, but any regret is short-lived. “I would still go back/If I could do it all again… Because it made me feel/Made me feel like a god.” Fame—and its pitfalls—are things Del Rey is more intimately acquainted with than most, and are a constant source of conflict on <i>Chemtrails</i>. But, as on “White Dre,” disillusionment most often turns to defiance. This reaches its peak by the album’s midpoint, “Dark but Just a Game,” an outstanding exploration of just how dangerous fame can be—if you let it. Where Del Rey was once accused of glamorizing the deaths of young artists who came before her, here, she emancipates herself from that melancholic mythology. “We keep changing all the time/The best ones lost their minds/So I’m not gonna change/I’ll stay the same,” she sings in an uplifting major-chord chorus that seems to look ahead to a better future. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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