Lana Del Rey sure does sound old, giving us a perpetual glimpse behind the scenes of the sort of relationship we all imagine might have existed between Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, conjuring the rush and the thrill of classic automobiles, the Pontiac Star Chief and 57 Chevy, leaving us at the end of the bar with a half-drunk glass in smoky rooms filled with faded photographs, or closing the front door behind us as we rub away smudged lipstick and linger absentmindedly in the early-morning gloom.
But the thing about Lana Del Rey is that she also sounds new, streaming out of the box of an old cathode ray television in a definition we haven’t arrived at yet, floating up by a forgotten beach cove fresh out of some futuristic submarine. It’s as though she blows you a warm kiss with a rouge lip, and by the time it reaches you it has turned neon blue, the scent of Arpege through Cristalle to what? The latest Angel formulation? The masquerade of window cleaning liquid which is in fact Moschino Fresh Couture?
It’s fair to talk so much about the nose when discussing Lana Del Rey, because everyone knows smell is the most evocative of all the sensations. And as it unfolds its hazy images, Lana Del Rey’s music seems to create new memories while it stirs the feelings, even if the predominant emotion is a sort of despondent sensitivity loosely stuck in the groove. Honeymoon is utterly captivating, her most cohesive and finely gradated album to date.
Is ‘Art Deco’ a sunken masterpiece, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis become Plato’s Atlantis, or does it quiver in the sky more idea than tangibly built? Whether the wind distresses our hair and pulls us up as our kite becomes untethered, or we relax in a sunlounger next to a knapsack containing experimental drugs, who among us wouldn’t like to get ‘High by the Beach’? Honeymoon is a work of submerged surf pop, gasping for air and expressing the longing of soul.
