The star follows up her career-high 'Norman Fucking Rockwell!' with another stunning album, one the aches with meditations on fame and romance.
Chemtrails Over the Country Club is another gorgeously enigmatic showpiece from a singer-songwriter who revels in private ambiguities in the dazzling glare of audacious songcraft.
As with all of her work, Chemtrails demands complete buy-in from the listener. It’s self-serious, the pacing never rising beyond creakingly woozy.
Simply put, she’s got the touch, whether you like what she’s got to say or not. And it is music you cannot ignore — it is good. Chemtrails Over The Country Club, her latest, is no exception.
A record that thrives on the most miniscule of details, ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’ is a project that rewards patience ... An enchanting listen, her world-building remains absolutely undimmed on this triumphant, bewitching project.
Chemtrails over the Country Club is a gorgeous listen: charming, clever, and vulnerable. Del Rey is as effective as ever in painting American fantasies, evoking nostalgia for realities always out of reach.
On Chemtrails, her most subdued and introspective album thus far, she soundtracks the death of the American dream right from the heart of Hollywood, just as she did on her previous effort, 2019’s electrifying Norman Fucking Rockwell! And while it may not have as many grandiose showpieces as its older sibling . . . Chemtrails is every bit as sharp and prescient of a cultural artifact from pop’s premier Cassandra.
This album is a perfect continuation from Del Rey’s last record offering a similar style but with a more stripped-down atmosphere production-wise ... This album is another triumph for Lana Del Rey.
The intoxicating strain of California anomie that pervaded 2019's Norman Fucking Rockwell is still, thankfully, strong on Del Rey’s excellent seventh album.
Chemtrails picks up the nostalgic thread of 2019's Norman Fucking Rockwell!, though here she's mostly Midwest and more melodic.
In symbiotic collaboration with Antonoff, these beautifully rendered pop tunes construct Del Rey’s artistic reality, as honestly as she knows how.
Del Rey’s music deals in the private tragedies of these glamorous elites and, in the time of a pandemic, it’s a bizarre irony that such stories still fascinate us so.
Sshe has a very real shot at becoming one of those enduring, timeless artists she often pays tribute to. This is in large part down to the staying power of the music itself – it is rare to find albums within the upper tier of mainstream pop that require time to percolate and get better with each listen rather than the reverse.
Whilst it isn’t the universal smash hit that Norman F**king Rockwell instantly was, you get the feeling that Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a slow burner, whose flame will ignite the next chapter of Del Rey’s career and all the many splendid opportunities that brings with it.
Like its creator, it’s off in a world of its own, free of commercial obligations and revelling in that autonomy. It’s a lovely place to visit.
With Chemtrails Over the Country Club, Del Rey shows her softest moments can be her most powerful.
Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a record full of euphoric highs and baffling lows. It’s an enjoyable listen that cinematically celebrates Del Rey’s vocal prowess. But perhaps most importantly, it places her front and center as the scrappy protagonist no one expects to win.
Chemtrails is less a full transformation than the first step forward in another direction.
Chemtrails over the Country Club isn’t as radical as her last handful of projects but this is not an ultra-conformist pop record either.
Even if it doesn't stack up to NFR, Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a solid songwriting statement from Lana.
Everything is just right in Chemtrails – the lyrics, the themes, the delivery, the majestic drums that beat through the songs, the impeccable production. If anything, it’s almost too perfect to be truly memorable.
Chemtrails over the Country Club is sultry at times, syrupy sweet at others, and sad in a truer way than we have yet seen from Lana. It is a well-woven escape, but it is harder than ever not to wonder: at what cost?
The confidence feels diminished, the rich production of its predecessor replaced by something thinner, sadder.
For better or worse, Chemtrails Over The Country Club is 100% a Lana Del Rey record that fits quaintly into her discography. Anyone following her up to this point shouldn’t bat an eye at how sharp of a left turn this is compared to her previous album. She’s absurdly contrived, but the allure is far too captivating to look away.
Though Chemtrails Over the Country Club isn’t quite Lana Del Rey's strongest album or the most iconically Lana, it’s an intimate, emotional, and largely successful renewal of her artistic vows.
By and large, Chemtrails Over The Country Club confirms every longstanding inadequacy to Lana del Rey’s craft with a pernicious listlessness that bloats its relatively economical runtime and extends a mind-erasing tedium far beyond those temporal confines.
Chemtrails Over The Country Club checks all the LDR boxes. She's of course an artist in constant evolution, her voice keeps somehow getting better and better with time. The weather in this record is somewhat completely different from NFR yet it has some similarities.
The music direction feels more effortless than her last albums but is more palatable this time around, I feel like this album will please the audiences more, just like Born To Die.
For the first time I actually feel Lana being ... read more
enchantingly hypnotic, lana is as enrapturing as ever. she shows her expert annunciation, and demonstrates her recent evolvement. lana’s previous two projects, ‘nfr’ and ‘violet bent backwards over the grass’, have their vibes coalescing into ‘chemtrails over the country club’.
‘chemtrails over the country club’ is equable and powerful; it’s heartfelt. lana sounds unbelievably clear, and her writing styles are varied. there’s an ... read more
Ahh, my 200th review on this lovely site.
First a confession of guilt: yes, I listened to the leaks.
I can say hand on heart that this album gets better with each listen. It's still Lana. It's still the same woman singing about amorous misalliances. But this time the lyrics are dressed in slightly different instrumentation. One that, to be honest, I sometimes missed in her work.
For example, the refrain of "White Dress" is downright anti-Lana.
In "Tulsa Jesus Freak" we ... read more
×Lana Del Rey Discography pt 6×
Dark but just a game may be one of her best songs, this album is pretty satisfactory and smooth
Fav Tracks: DBJAG, White Dress & Chemtrails
Least Fav Tracks: Let me love you like a woman, For free & Breaking up slowly
weaker compared to lana's other works but still very worth the listen!
has some nice vocal showcase unseen previously from lana in "not all who wander are lost" and lighter nice songs.
1 | White Dress 5:33 | 88 |
2 | Chemtrails Over the Country Club 4:31 | 89 |
3 | Tulsa Jesus Freak 3:35 | 84 |
4 | Let Me Love You Like a Woman 3:20 | 76 |
5 | Wild at Heart 4:06 | 84 |
6 | Dark But Just a Game 3:55 | 86 |
7 | Not All Who Wander Are Lost 4:07 | 80 |
8 | Yosemite 5:04 | 80 |
9 | Breaking Up Slowly 2:57 feat. Nikki Lane | 77 |
10 | Dance Till We Die 4:03 | 78 |
11 | For Free 4:11 feat. Zella Day, Weyes Blood | 76 |
#2 | / | Gaffa (Denmark) |
#2 | / | The Telegraph |
#3 | / | MOJO |
#4 | / | Slant Magazine |
#5 | / | Los Angeles Times |
#7 | / | The New York Times: Jon Caramanica |
#7 | / | The Washington Post |
#11 | / | The Forty-Five |
#11 | / | Uncut |
#17 | / | The Independent |