First Listen: Lust For Life, Lana Del Rey

“Is this the end of an era? Is this the end of America?” asks Lana Del Rey on ‘When The World Was at War We Kept Dancing’, perhaps the centre-piece of her new album Lust For Life.

Now what could that be about? Exploring the sociopolitical is new, unfamiliar territory for Del Rey. She’s acknowledged that she’s not entirely comfortable with it, admitting that she vacillated between cutting and keeping this song in particular. “It’s a troubling sentiment,” she recently told NME.

Del Rey's hazy, drugged-up fantasies about leather-and-lace 50s Hollywood romanticism may make her an unlikely revolutionary leader, but here she makes a sort-of-call to arms: “Shake it up, throw your hands up and get loose/Cut a rug, lean into the fucking youth.”

There’s an unsubtle statement in ‘God Bless America - And All Beautiful Women In It’ as the “America” of the chorus is punctuated with two gunshots. Is Del Rey the next M.I.A.?

Longtime Del Rey fans will be comforted to know, however, that it isn’t totally “the end of an era." To a large extent, the artist formerly known as Lizzie Grant has stayed consistent with the aesthetic that made her a star. Here you’ll find songs about having to go to ‘13 Beaches’ to find an empty one– presumably to get high by; being entranced by a lover’s ‘White Mustang’; and waiting by the side of stage to give her man some ‘Groupie Love’.

Even in these songs, there are marks of progression: a new level of maturity and self-assurance. Where once she might’ve sung “He hit me and it felt like a kiss”, now we find there's anger at falling for “another loser” on ‘In My Feelings’. “Who's tougher than this bitch?" she asks. "Who's free-er than me? You wanna make the switch, be my guest, baby.”

The album’s replay-ability is upped even further by its guest spots. Del Rey and The Weeknd dovetail beautifully, as they duet on the title track - an album and career highlight. Meanwhile, Del Rey’s delight in singing with Stevie Nicks is palpable on ‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems’, a meditation on the difficulties of fame. A$AP Rocky’s appearances contribute a welcome sonic change, on the laid-back hip-hop of ‘Summer Bummer’ and the aforementioned ‘Groupie Love’. There’s also a curiously meta duet with Sean Lennon - “Isn’t life crazy now that I’m singing with Sean?”.

At an hour and 17 minutes, the album perhaps might have benefitted from a heartless edit or two, but there’s no lack of quality throughout, as a roll of producers – including pop overlord Max Martin and hip-hop starlet Metro Boomin – slickly harness and embellish Del Rey’s songwriting. Lust for Life probably won’t convert any begrudgers, but it’ll leave fans with a smile as wide as the one Del Rey sports on the front cover. After all, "when the world was at war before, we just kept dancing."