Lana Del Rey gives first taste of upcoming album
One of the biggest perks of being a Lana Del Rey fan is that you never really have to wait long for her to come up with new material. Del Rey dropped her most recent album, Lust For Life, in the summer of 2017 and has appeared on the BØRNS single ‘God Save Our Young Blood’ as well as performing Andrew Lloyd Webber composition ‘You Must Love Me’ (made famous by Madonna) for a compilation celebrating his career. Lana recently shared with fans on social media that she is working with Jack Antonoff (frontman of Bleachers, guitarist of Fun. and produced for Lorde, Taylor Swift and St. Vincent). She revealed that this material will appear on her next studio album to be released in 2019 and the first two tracks will drop in September. The first of the two, ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ is out now, while ‘Venice Bitch’ will follow next week!
Now Lana Del Rey has never been known for her uptempo tracks (though we see you and appreciate you ‘Off To The Races’), but ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ starts out stripped down and restrained even for her standards. The song opens with piano, some subtle strings and acoustic guitar riff and it takes a solid 1.5 minutes before the chorus comes around for the first time. When the chorus hits though, the track soars beautifully with a timeless melody. It echoes the folk inspired sound of the second half of Lust For Life until the second chorus comes around and slightly psychedelic guitars take over. It brings back the darker soundscape that dominated Del Rey’s Ultraviolence record. Now I might be the only one on the entire planet, but somehow the melody progression and the electric guitar in the outro do remind me of the legendary ‘Wicked Game’ by Chris Isaak. Only Lana Del Rey can mix 60s folk, surf rock and the big melodies of 80s ballads in one track!
Lyrically, ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ is some of her most accomplished work yet, with an uplifting message in poetic wordings and not a whole lot of Lana-isms going on. “You’re lost at sea, then I’ll command your boat to me again” is such a sweet and powerful lyric! This chorus is going to sing through my head for the rest of the day, week and month and I am not one bit mad about that!
Del Rey announced on BBC Radio 1 that the album is finished and will be released at the top of 2019.