Chemtrails Over the Country Club

Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
Critic Score
Based on 37 reviews
2021 Ratings: #169 / 753
Year End Rank: #30
User Score
2021 Rank: #267
Liked by 585 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
NME

The star follows up her career-high 'Norman Fucking Rockwell!' with another stunning album, one the aches with meditations on fame and romance.

100
The Telegraph

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.

100
The Irish Times

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.

100
The Independent
A great storyteller, Del Rey consistently delivers the who, what, where and when.
90
Spill Magazine

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.

90
Clash

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.

90
Gigwise
Of course, the music Lana Del Rey actually makes is not something that can be so easily lampooned. This album proves that, demonstrating once again how complex, consistent and completely irresistible Lana is - and has been ever since the moment 'Video Games' dropped.
90
Albumism
This is some of Del Rey’s most intricate and exquisite work.
85
Spectrum Culture
The singer sketches out a complicated relationship with success while maintaining her high-quality control.
83
Consequence of Sound

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.

80
Rolling Stone

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.

80
The Observer
On her strikingly assured seventh album, Del Rey reflects on fame, love, loneliness and the solidarity of fellow female songwriters, from Joni Mitchell to Weyes Blood.
80
Northern Transmissions

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.

80
Mojo

The intoxicating strain of California anomie that pervaded 2019's Norman Fucking Rockwell is still, thankfully, strong on Del Rey’s excellent seventh album.

80
Uncut

Chemtrails picks up the nostalgic thread of 2019's Norman Fucking Rockwell!, though here she's mostly Midwest and more melodic.

80
The Arts Desk

In symbiotic collaboration with Antonoff, these beautifully rendered pop tunes construct Del Rey’s artistic reality, as honestly as she knows how.

80
The Line of Best Fit

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.

80
Louder Than War

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.

80
The Forty-Five
During a period that's tailor-made for navel-gazing and nostalgia, Lana has produced yet another timely record for us to brood over.
80
Under the Radar

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.

80
Evening Standard

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.

80
AllMusic

With Chemtrails Over the Country Club, Del Rey shows her softest moments can be her most powerful.

79
Paste

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.

75
Entertainment Weekly

Chemtrails is less a full transformation than the first step forward in another direction.

75
Pitchfork
Lana Del Rey’s sixth album dials back the grandiosity in favor of smaller, more intimate moments. It carries a roaming spirit of folk and Americana without losing the romantic melodrama of her best work.
74
Still Listening

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.

70
The Needle Drop

Even if it doesn't stack up to NFR, Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a solid songwriting statement from Lana.

70
Loud and Quiet

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.

70
Slant Magazine
The album is a compelling, if minor, chapter in the artist’s ongoing saga of fatalistic romanticism.
70
Exclaim!

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?

70
DIY

The confidence feels diminished, the rich production of its predecessor replaced by something thinner, sadder.

70
Beats Per Minute

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.

70
PopMatters

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.

60
The Guardian
Her usual themes of nostalgia, troubled fame and ne’er-do-well lovers are trotted out again – but the melody writing is stronger than ever.
60
RIOT
In all this is a good effort, it doesn’t re-invent the wheel, and it doesn’t have the evolution that her last effort promised. It’s another Lana Del Rey album.
58
A.V. Club
If any mid-sized indie artists released this album, it would be received well. But the issue is that it’s coming from someone capable of artistic genius, not making it worth the wait.
30
Sputnikmusic

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.

marvelgaryen
87

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

JacksonLerner
87

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

Valeyard
85

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

TIW
70

Underrated

Snowflake8
75

×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

lasagnabby
70

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.

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Added on: August 30, 2019