Description
Ultraviolence’s tone is set by Cruel World, the slow, six-and-a-half minute opening track that features shimmering guitars, a funereal beat and a brooding vocal about an ex-lover. Katy Perry-style dance-pop, it’s not.
Ethereal chords, sparse beats and Del Rey’s whispery, deep purr are the album’s default settings. Not once does a song’s tempo surpass mid-paced, and this gives things a certain hypnotic effect – particularly when she pulls off one of those sultry key changes that are her stock-in-trade. At her best, Del Rey has that bruised-yet-dreamy tone of Nancy Sinatra’s duets with Lee Hazlewood.
