Lana Del Rey – Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass (2020)

If Lana Del Rey's 2021 album Chemtrails Over the Country Club felt like the atmospheric post-script to her 2019 master statement Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Blue Banisters comes off like the addendum to the post-script. Released just seventh months after its predecessor, Blue Banisters isn't too far removed from the midtempo, woozy tones that defined that album. The 15 tracks here span about an hour running time, and generally stick to the familiar framework of sad-hearted torch songs for a burning world that Lana has built her entire discography on. Closely inspecting the songwriting, production, performance, and sequencing choice on Blue Banisters, however, reveals some moments of quiet evolution.

Following the success of her 2019 Grammy®-nominated album Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana releases her highly anticipated seventh studio album Chemtrails Over The Country Club.

Lana Del Rey knows perfectly well her Lust for Life sounds sleepy in comparison to Iggy Pop's full-blooded roar, but that doesn't mean the title of her fourth album is ironic. Compared to her previous albums, especially its somnolent 2015 predecessor, Honeymoon, Lust for Life is positively ebullient in tone, if not in tempo. Lana Del Rey may sing about a "Summer Bummer" but the song isn't in sway to a narcotic undertow; it simmers, offering a cool bit of seduction for muggy August nights. LDR retains this delicate balance throughout the lengthy Lust for Life (at 71 minutes, this is an album as playlist, designed to be looped over and over as mood music), never quite succumbing to either despair or ecstasy but rather finding a place where there's no separation between the two emotions.

Lana Del Rey could have retired after the cinematic grandeur of her 2019 high-water mark Norman Fucking Rockwell! That album's imaginative songwriting, finely crafted performances, and exceptional production served as a realization of the magnificence promised by earlier efforts, and the deepest look yet at Del Rey's stormy inner world. Subsequent albums suggested a little bit of a comedown after such heights. Both released in 2021, Chemtrails Over the Country Club felt like an NFR! bonus reel, while Blue Banisters played like a mixtape of solid but random song ideas. Ninth album Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd finds Del Rey returning to the powerful level of song sculpting she reached on NFR!, and feels like a strong step forward as much as it does a worthy follow-up to her best record.

Call Honeymoon the third installment in a trilogy if you will but there's no indication Lana Del Rey will put her doomed diva persona to rest after this album. Over the course of three albums, Lana Del Rey hasn't so much expanded her delicately sculpted persona as she has refined it, removing anything extraneous to her exquisite ennui. Honeymoon doesn't drift or float, it marks time, sometimes swelling with a suggestion of impending melodrama but often deflating to just an innervated pulse…