The seemingly eternal wait for Lana Del Rey’s third studio album, “Ultraviolence,” is finally over. Let the LDR fans (those college-aged girls who wear floral wreath crowns for any occasion) rejoice! After all, the six months that fans had to wait between Lana’s announcement of her new album at the premiere of her short film “Tropico” – in which she plays Eve, a gangster, and a stripper (oh my!) – and today’s release date must have been agonizing. 

However, the past few months of waiting for “Ultraviolence” have still featured LDR quite a bit in the media. Along with making headlines for performing at Kimye’s wedding dinner and for her controversial opinions on feminism, Del Rey has also offered a few glimpses at the new album. Teasing her fans with a picture on Twitter announced The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach as the album’s producer, debuting the album’s first single, “West Coast,” at Coachella, and most recently, releasing yet another new song, “Shades of Cool,” after Memorial Day, Lana only fueled her fans’ eagerness for the June release. 

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“Ultraviolence” should not disappoint this loyal fan base, supplying them with all the key components of an LDR record: love ballads lamenting the loss of past lovers, songs celebrating the West Coast and the American Dream, vocals ranging from a soft whisper to a whimper to a drawl, lyrics hinting at Lana’s ever-present “daddy issues,” the aura of old Hollywood glamour, and an overwhelming feeling of depression throughout the album. In other words, this album is nearly indistinguishable from her previous two albums, the only noticeable difference being the addition of a guitar-centered melody on a number of the tracks. 

The first single, “West Coast,” is an obvious example of this different, guitar-based sound, devoid of the orchestral backing music typical of Lana’s songs. In fact, “West Coast” sounds almost like an old Black Keys song with Lana singing instead of Dan Auerbach. “Brooklyn Baby” also adheres to this new style, the acoustic guitar the most dominant instrument throughout the song.

“Pretty When You Cry” is, for the most part, just Lana and a guitar, but even though it lacks her iconic orchestral instrumentation, the extremely mellow tempo fits her established style more than the abovementioned two songs. Similarly, “Cruel World” has electric guitar throughout, but the drum backbeat in the choruses and the overall ethereal tone of the song makes the use of the guitar seem less experimental. 

Other songs include the guitar in a more subtle way, like “Shades of Cool,” which, although it has electric guitar throughout, serves more as accompaniment to the more typical-Lana orchestral choruses. “Money Power Glory” has guitar accents in the choruses, but the guitar is not a dominant instrument in the song. The title track has, perhaps, the most random inclusion of surf-guitar accents during the chorus in an otherwise very orchestral song. 

Aside from these few, minor experimentations with guitar, the album is hardly fresh. “Sad Girl,” a bluesy piano and drum song, sounds uncannily similar to “Million Dollar Man” off “Born to Die,” “F****d My Way to the Top” is both structurally and sonically akin to “Without You” also off LDR’s first album. “The Other Woman” is almost identical to “Blue Velvet” off “Paradise” (especially in how Lana sings in both songs), and the simple piano-based “Old Money” parallels “Yayo” from her second album. 

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Although diehard LDR fans will undoubtedly love “Ultraviolence,” the album sounds like Lana recycled her old songs for a new release. Sure, consistency is a positive trait for a musician to an extent, but Lana’s now monotonous music could use a little revamping. Lana Del Rey was wrong when she declared that “feminism is just not an interesting concept;” rather, her new album is what is truly uninteresting.

Reach Staff Reporter Ashley Hawkins here.