The singer has yet to discover a sound or sensibility that truly distinguishes her.
The album is a statement of exuberance from an artist who’s known to deal in gloom.
An album that, just a few months ago, might have felt like a nostalgia trip or a guilty pleasure now feels like manna for the soul.
An effort to appreciate the present before it slips away into the recesses of memory forms the album’s foundation.
The album strikes a deft balance between experimental and commercial, moody and uplifting.
The album encompasses the infinite potential for grace and disaster during the most turbulent of ages.
The album demonstrates the band’s versatility, locating something of a sweet spot.
The album buries what traces of melody there are beneath thundering drums and bass.
The album offers a homey, bittersweet charm largely unique to the troubadour’s legendary catalog.
Dim the lights, pump up the volume, and join us as we imagine a future where we won’t be dancing on our own.
The singer addresses a generation resistant to defining itself against a backdrop of perpetual catastrophe.
The album advances the thesis that the nature of modern life is inherently carceral.
The album represents an evolution from trap easy-listening to big-canvas rap artistry.
The album demonstrates the tangled multi-dimensionality of both the singer’s own psyche and the act of sex itself.
That the singer continues to mine the same territory, both musically and conceptually, suggests the empress truly has no clothes.
The album solidifies the band as the boldest purveyors of something resembling what we used to call rock.
The house-inflected dance-pop tune finds the two overzealous vocalists duking it out to see who can outsing the other.
The album speaks to our current circumstances without being exclusively tethered to them.
The singles aims for euphoric, “Teenage Dream”-style heights but doesn’t quite reach them.
The songs on the album may be brief, but they more than make up for it with depth.
These songs comprise a guide for the singer-songwriter’s signature brand of rock and mastery of poetic memoir.