Hi, everyone. Popthany Stringtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of the new Rosalía album, Lux.

Here we have a new record from one of the industry's most talented vocalists, Spain's own Rosalía. A while back, I was one of the first major outlets to do a rave review of her debut album, Los Angeles, a project that was a beautiful fusion of flamenco and folk singer-songwriter music, with some of the best singing you're going to hear from 2017, which was almost 10 years ago at this point. Fast forward to now, and Rosalía is one of the most respected vocalists on the globe today. Her talent is so immense, even her biggest detractors have to admit that her success is valid on some level.

But getting to this point has definitely required finding ways to make her immense talents work within a more commercial context, whether she is reigning her abilities in just a touch when collaborating with the likes of Travis Scott and The Weekend, or dropping albums that plug into trends that have a wider appeal than flamenco, be it her sophomore record, El Mal Querer, which had much more of an art pop punch, or her last album, Motomami, where she was diving headfirst into these experimental combinations of electronic music and reggaeton.

LUX, however, is very much being painted as Rosalía going against the grain, rebelling against popular music trends, and embracing her years of formal vocal training in a way that really showcases the institutional background of it.

Take the sound and music video for this record's breakout single, "Berghain," where Rosalía is surrounded by orchestral instrumentation, not just sonically, but physically. On this track, you've also got booming drums, godly choral passages, and Rosalía vocally going full opera mode. There's also a killer feature from Björk in the midst on this track, who is no stranger to these classical and art pop fusions. And there's also a Kanye-esque outro to boot on this track, featuring none other than Yves Tumor, whose shouts are backed by these pounding, syncopated drums and strings, with a somewhat abrupt ending, this track is one of the most shocking and beautiful singles of the year, in my opinion, and it most definitely set an incredibly high bar in terms of my expectations for this album. Because making these sounds and genres appeal to a pop audience while simultaneously doing anything genuinely novel or daring with them is a really huge challenge for Rosalía to set out for herself.

But given her years of training, her taste, her talent, I don't know, the possibility of her pulling that off is very real, which is why I went into LUX with such high hopes.

I will say the record at first is most definitely a roller coaster ride of overwhelming, bright, and I'll also say, orgasmic sounds. The display that is put on here is definitely something to behold, and this record could go down as one of the best engineered of the year. Actually, I would guarantee that. However, the more I listen to this project, the more all of this came across like a high I was gradually coming down from. Because while the orchestrations are definitely impressive and Rosalía continues to bring a lot of ability to the table, a lot like her previous album, Motomami, I thought many of the song structures on this record were short winded or left something to be desired. Not only that, but many of the songs on this album are much less adventurous than "Berghain" by comparison.

Take the first full song on the album, for example, "Reliquia". Aside from the occasional string and percussive edits, much of the music on this track sounds like the intro theme to a stereotypical pop musical, one that you would see the Today Show do a segment on or something.

When it comes to tracks that do lean into more of a classical direction, it sounds like their progressions are edited and whittled down to be consumed by impatient pop listeners, which to me is besides the point if you're going to fully embrace this style. Case in point, the song "Mundo Nuevo", which to my ears sounds like I'm speed running an opera with an engineer in post cutting a larger piece down to its most eventful and dramatic bits, leaving us with a few minutes of music that work neither as a pop tune or a classical piece. Because it really does feel like Rosalía and her producers were spending a lot of time wondering how far to go in either direction throughout this tracklist.

I will say there are a lot of moments where that balance is more or less nailed, like on "La Yugular", as well as "Mio Cristo Piange Diamante", which has the directness of a powerful piano ballad at the start of the song. It's intimate, it's emotional, it's catchy, too. But then all the classical orchestrations and the fluidity of the structure begin to seep in. We move in and out of these incredible crescendos of strings and vocals that are honestly tear-inducing. Not to mention these quiet but also powerful passages where we're not really getting much more than some super gentle string accompaniment, and Rosalía really experimenting with and playing with the dynamics of her voice, which, again, is something I wish we were getting more of on this album. I also love the ending of this track, the humor that's packed in as well by the little vocal passage of her making reference to, "Yeah, it sounds like this, and then we're going to do this part after," and then the strings come in and it's like [Boom!].

There's also tracks on this record that take on more of a pop or art pop flavor, and those tend to range in quality, too. "Berghain", again, which I mentioned before, is amazing. But there's also "Porcelana", which the more I listen to, the more I felt like the autotune passages that were popping in here and there were super forced and frankly annoying, "ske-ske-ske-ske." We also have "De Madrugá", which is a flamenco flavored leftover from the El Mal era, apparently. However, the track is so short that it feels like a bit of a footnote in this 15 song tracklist.

I get similar vibes from "God is a Stalker" ["Dios Es Un Stalker"], too. One of many tracks on this album that speak to this album's themes of religion and spiritual transcendence. But the song structure is so basic that it feels like it came straight off of a pop assembly line, even with the little key change toward the end, which left me feeling, "why?" Why go through all the trouble of arranging all of these expensive, rich, showy arrangements and occasionally adding in funny bits to make it feel like all of this is happening super live and in the moment – like you're hearing the orchestra making noise, turning pages, stuff like that – if you're just going to dish out something that has such carbon copy structuring and also forgettable verse syndrome to boot.

Because despite how organic or in the moment, some of the tracks on this album sound on the surface, sometimes it does feel like the soul of these ideas gets sucked out in post. I guess I'll say, don't let the window dressing or presentation of this record fool you, because when you listen to it closely, it is as methodically assembled and edited as any major pop album you're going to hear this year.

In fact, there are tracks on this thing that I think mirror modern pop trends pretty clearly, like "La Perla", which when looking at the lyrics of this thing, is this not just like a Sabrina Carpenter bit? "Oh, man, this guy is so bad. He's like an emotional terrorist and obsessed spending money, and he's going to therapy?"

Still, with that being said, there are moments where this album embraces its pop hood and it works. Like, "Sauvignon Blanc", for example, is just great balladry through and through. I think the record ends pretty well, too, with "Magnolias," which is not only another beautiful moment where those classical elements really start to come to the forefront once again. But Rosalía's vocal performance is absolutely stunning, and it's a powerful ending given its lyrics as well, as Rosalía dives into her feelings around mortality and gives us imagery of her death and magnolias being thrown.

So yeah, while I did enjoy a majority of the material on this album, and once again, Rosalía brings some stunning and frankly unparalleled vocal performances. Also, again, the engineering and production across these tracks is very impressive, whether they are simplified or more complex.

But this album does falter a bit, in my opinion, when it comes to some of the songwriting and lyrical ideas and conceptualizing of what direction we're going to go in in terms of these genre fusions and song structures. Some tracks are genuinely daring, and I would say, frankly, are the real deal when it comes to bringing classical music and art pop together in a refreshing way. Other tracks, frankly, come across super dumbed down, and I feel like that's partially as a result of being afraid of maybe alienating some listeners that might be scared off by a "Berghain" or some of the other more difficult tracks here.

I mean, yeah, it is true, the best and most ambitious compositional highlights on this record are amazing. But you know what would have been even more amazing? If the whole record did that, not just some moments difference, which is why, unfortunately, LUX was maybe just a super, super, super slight let down for me, even if I did come out enjoying it for the most part, because it really did seem like we were set up for a project that was going to be a bit more of a grandiose display than it ended up being at the finish line, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Rosalía, Forever.