TEMPORARY Chemtrails Over the Country Club - Pre-Release Thread: OUT March 19th, 2021

[sweetie 6,615]

Spoiler

I wanna like Wild At Heart so bad. The verses are extremely gorgeous. But the recycled chorus just ruins it for me 

 

[Serene Queen 4,776]

It’s too soon to tell if this is gonna be my favorite of her albums, but objectively, it’s 100% her best 

[electra 20,630]

13 minutes ago, FallingCherry said:

I feel like I’ve been blessed by this incredibly heartfelt and honest review. I felt every single word you wrote. Absolutely lovely 

 

31 minutes ago, Pico Boulevard said:

I love this so much

 

26 minutes ago, Gothicula said:

this is amazing wow, it's my fav lana album i think

 

thank you all so much! i think there's a lot of different opinions on what the "good" and "bad" tracks are but honestly this is an extremely finely made selection of works that are all beautiful with redeeming qualities. i couldn't put them in a specific order because i think as time goes on and we digest this album opinions will definitely change. i don't know if other people relate to this, but with certain fantastic albums you just go through phases where every song is the best. 

 

i can't wait to see the critical response. i had a great feeling about NFR and i have a greater feeling about this album. i genuinely think this will be a discography staple / classic. every damn time she releases an album we think "this is it, she can't get better than this" - and she just fucking does it?

 

mojo didn't lie when headlined the article "it's dangerous on the edges". she's somehow only ever on the up and up, i wonder at what point she's really going to fall? this completely shattered my expectations from her. she hit ranges we never knew she could hit. an instant classic.

[mypolaroidfrown 618]

Spoiler

I'm really loving Dark But Just a Game. It has a bit of BTD flavor, IMO. I feel like it would have fit in really well as the closing track on BTD. The song feels like something to be played at the end credits of a film. It might be replacing TJF as my favorite track on the record. Like many of you said, we need to really spend some quality time with the record as a whole. Her vocals and lyrics are gorgeous!

 

[Beautiful Loser 46,008]

9 minutes ago, electra said:

i had a great feeling about NFR and i have a greater feeling about this album. i genuinely think this will be a discography staple / classic. every damn time she releases an album we think "this is it, she can't get better than this" - and she just fucking does it?

 

mojo didn't lie when headlined the article "it's dangerous on the edges". she's somehow only ever on the up and up, i wonder at what point she's really going to fall? this completely shattered my expectations from her. she hit ranges we never knew she could hit. an instant classic.

Ok now I'm hyped

[hlxon 2,443]

If you haven't listened to the album I wouldn't recommend reading what's in the spoiler tag, because I'm talking about like the biggest surprise there is on the album (at least to me)

 

Spoiler

But for those who listened, what are your thoughts on Dance Til We Die?? I mean I guess I kinda like it, but I absolutely love the bridge where everything switches up, definitely the best bridge on the album, but I wish the song would have kept that energy until the end and do a last chorus different and way more energetic, I feel like the fact that the song goes back to normal after the bridge is kinda jarring and cuts off the energy of the song and actually keeps the song from standing out on the album. I would love to hear your thoughts on that song

 

[hyaluronicacid 630]

ugh I just wish she would rush release on friday because that is what Dua did when this happened to her (and she shares a manager with Lana) and it worked well for her. also if she released on friday she would get the #1 on the billboard 200 which she won't be getting if she releases on the 19th. 

[WildMustang 14,725]

Just now, hlxon said:

If you haven't listened to the album I wouldn't recommend reading what's in the spoiler tag, because I'm talking about like the biggest surprise there is on the album (at least to me)

 

  Hide contents

But for those who listened, what are your thoughts on Dance Til We Die?? I mean I guess I kinda like it, but I absolutely love the bridge where everything switches up, definitely the best bridge on the album, but I wish the song would have kept that energy until the end and do a last chorus different and way more energetic, I feel like the fact that the song goes back to normal after the bridge is kinda jarring and cuts off the energy of the song and actually keeps the song from standing out on the album. I would love to hear your thoughts on that song

 

Spoiler

I noticed that most people praise the bridge, but it feels  too anticlimatic for me, I really like the verses more

 

[hyaluronicacid 630]

question for those who have listened. How many songs have bridges? because like almost none on NFR did and that was a letdown for me

[Liz Taylor Blues 17,617]

1 hour ago, Terrence Loves Me said:

breaking up slowly... skip of the century!

sis we know you're just campaigning for Worst Taste early this year. You needn't bother. You're a shoe in

[sweetie 6,615]

2 minutes ago, hlxon said:

If you haven't listened to the album I wouldn't recommend reading what's in the spoiler tag, because I'm talking about like the biggest surprise there is on the album (at least to me)

 

  Hide contents

But for those who listened, what are your thoughts on Dance Til We Die?? I mean I guess I kinda like it, but I absolutely love the bridge where everything switches up, definitely the best bridge on the album, but I wish the song would have kept that energy until the end and do a last chorus different and way more energetic, I feel like the fact that the song goes back to normal after the bridge is kinda jarring and cuts off the energy of the song and actually keeps the song from standing out on the album. I would love to hear your thoughts on that song

 

Spoiler

This is the song that grew on me the most. Not because of the bridge, but despite the bridge. I love the verses and chorus -- the bridge is just a bit too tacky and jazzy for my taste.

 

[lanasbottom 23,687]

3 hours ago, sophiesmom said:

its not as powerful as her other releases but.... our girl knows how to write and sing 

 

Spoiler

it’s at least 5 times more interesting than nfr tbh, it has that sombre, melodic, druggy lana feeling nfr desperately needed. plus the production, while still being very.... well Jack unfortunately, is so much more interesting and the vocal production is so refreshing compared to norman.... for now i feel like it has most of the elements nfr needed for me to really love it 

 

[prettywhenimhigh 48,476]

1 hour ago, electra said:

okay so i never do song or album breakdowns basically ever but the opinions on this album are so polarising i have decided to throw my two cents in. i've listened to the album twice and i'm going to listen to the album again while writing this. i personally think this is her best album and considered NFR her best album before this.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

overview

back to front this is a beautiful album experience. one of the most satisfying first listens of an album i have ever heard. i love the fact we had nothing other than two songs and honestly if i had heard nothing this would have been even more satisfying. it's an extremely cohesive selection of songs (even yosemite) with beautiful builds, catchy choruses and is very experimental at times - both vocally from lana and production-wise from jack. this is by far her most abstract and experimental album with some of her most interesting and thought-provoking lyrics. overall, i've always enjoyed her lyrics where she's directly telling the listener specific stories - her songwriting abilities often blossom then - and this album is a very good example of that.

 

@wraith made a fantastic point when we were listening together that the overall flow of the album is similar to madonna's confessions on a dancefloor - where there's lots of slow builds, tension rises and releases, all of which are in very good and interesting timings. both jack and lana seemed to have a fantastic understanding of how to let the instrumentation speak and tell stories around her narratives. i don't know if this has been much commented, but the overall builds and changes in sound are very similar to some of the backing instrumentals in Violet, which could often be very chaotic but also very restrained depending on the shift of tone lana was looking for.

 

i'm really impressed by how lana and jack handled the instrumentals. the album is similar to NFR, but the sound is warmer and also feels more live surprisingly. it is very easy to imagine lana and her band performing one live take of the songs in a studio.

 

white dress

a beautiful opening track. there are times where her vocals literally do not even sound like her. her dreamy highs in the jazzy tone of her voice when she hits that chorus is a wall of emotion. her voice is so delicate here - you literally trust every gasp and whisper in her voice. when the percussion quietly comes in during the second verse it gives her voice the perfect amount of support to allow her to come down from the high. and as it hits that second chorus and the music swells - that's the moment you know this is her magnum opus. i'm so glad she challenged herself vocally from track one. and it doesn't even stop there - just when you think the song is fading that instrumental comes back and blossoms. it's really notable here that despite the notable changes in the instrumentals volumes it never drowns her out. i think that was very smart of jack. she is always at the centrepiece of this song. the true definition of a performance. when she repeats "it makes me feel like a god", the quietness and delicateness of her voice has a beautiful contrast to the statement.

 

chemtrails over the country club

a beautiful title track, but wbk. beautiful and catchy and you will be singing this to yourself for weeks. beautiful example of the instrumentation builds in this album. the chaos of the last minute and a half of this song or so its wonderful. you can hear the warmth and safety in her voice - a beautiful, dreamy single with such interesting uses of sounds in the build. another beautiful element of this album is the rhythms of the percussion really help elevate some of the songs which is really true of chemtrails. the long outro of the drum here is beautiful and adds to this dreamy idea of her singing this song and performing forever and eternally.

 

tulsa jesus freak

i honestly thought i was going to dislike this but fuck me. when people mentioned auto-tune i thought what? but damn, this is probably some of the most beautiful use of auto-tune i've ever heard in my life. surprisingly delicate and when used as backing vocal it really supports her lead vocals so well. the get free-esque "white hot forever!" i could listen to forever. you can imagine the way she's effortlessly swaying and she sings this.

 

when she says "can we go back to the ranch baby?" damn. she sounds so delicate and fragile here. when she says "baby" you can almost here a refrain in her voice as if she sounds scared. lots of beautiful lines here - "can i make you laugh with a smile?", "you know when you chose me i was nothing but ordinary", "find your way back to my bed again" - all of which are made a million times more impactful simply by her delicate vocal delivery. the moments of spoken word in this are a lovely surprise as well. this is definitely going to be a grower, which is fantastic considering its already a great song from listen #1.

 

let me love you like a woman

i will never understand why she released this as a single, but it supports the album exceptionally well. the lyrics are wonderful and again it has a beautiful release. her vocals support themselves very well in the layering of the chorus here. probably one of the songs where her vocals sound the strongest (in a literal sense - the harmonies are very assertive and supportive). completely works in the context of the album.

 

wild at heart

starting every song on this album was like "god is this gonna be the flop?" but it just never happens. it kind of starts with an energy similar to love song, and then that chorus comes in. "i left calabasas!" - damn, so fun and free sounding. she really made the song sound like its title-sake. the change here is an amazing shift and really just adds something so beautiful. the sample from how to disappear is perfect. it's almost better in the context of this song. nothing has ever made me love a country sound more. @wraith made the really good point that the sound of this album is almost some kind of strange lana-del-rey-esque nu-country (he affectionally referred to it as "country 2").

 

don't fucking get me started in the choir harmonies. she fucking snapped so hard. it just makes me wants to tilt my head back in bliss and close my eyes and absorb every inch of her vocal.

 

dark but just a game

the start of some of the more 90s vibes of the album. we commented that its very similar to some of the earlier eels' albums and this is where i really fucking encourage people who love this song specifically to please, for the love of god, listen to either beautiful freak or electro-shock blues (the albums) by eels. the shifts between the verses with the percussion and the very majestic and magical choruses is a fantastic representation of that sound. i would find it hard to believe neither jack nor lana were inspired by that specific sound.

 

 

 

the shifts between the hip-hop-esque beats and the jazzy sound really hark back to that experimental 90s sound - and the layering of some of the strings really contributes to that. i definitely think lana sound do more of an alternative 90s rock sound in the future because she really pulls it off.

 

not all those who wander are lost

oh this is just lovely. again, the use of the random male vocal sample is really fun but i feel like it will be lost of some people. it really helps build the live sound of the album and again. lots of fun and again comes back to that 90s eels sound with the use of random sampling that helps create an interesting texture on the album and really brings a beautiful cohesion. this is probably the weakest song on the album for me...but i mean she's a 10/10 on an album of 11's. i love and appreciate this song so much. by this point in the album you should have hopefully realised this is a fantastic and timeless body of work from lana - this will shape the rest of her career.

 

yosemite

a really beautiful and surprisingly cohesive song. the bongos are so soft and subtle. the guitar loop is lovely. i can see how this could be a lust for life song but damn it really fits in the context of the album. another one of my least favourites but again it's like choosing between diamonds. i'm sure one day this will hit me. the focus on this track appears to be more on the lyrics and there's less focus on changes in the instrumentals, and i think that creates a lovely break from the rest of the tracks. and fuck yeah more spoken word! come on ms poet.

 

breaking up slowly

fuck all y'all, this is a great song. i have the chorus stuck in my head all the time now. has such a classic and timeless sound and all of the vocalists on this album are super complimentary. it's always great having some variations of voice tone and texture in albums. on the non-feature songs, lana pushed herself to be very vocally experimental and textured, which allows her to be more less so on this duet. these features are considerably less jarring than on lust for life and very complimentary of one another. lana's voice supports nikki very, very well. a lovely and dreamy guitar song, so classic and folk-y.

 

dance till we die

fucking gag. the chorus of this is so fucking catchy and the horns in this support the song so beautifully. the lyrics are so descriptive and reflective and fun. the build in this song is exceptional, and the bridge...

 

when she said "so we made a pack in the middle of the night..." it gives me goosebumps. the rise and crescendo here is brilliant.

 

for free

a lovely closer. probably her best album closer cover. like breaking up slowly, their voices really complimented one another. a lovely closer to the album. everyone's voices feel so real and trustworthy. when they come up in those highs it just sends shivers. it's so well produced and warm. weyes' really supports lana and zella so well, i love her tone of voice. my only wish is that the outro was maybe a bit more extended on jack's part but honestly it can be really refreshing to hear a little bit of restraint in jack's production.

 

tl:dr; her magnum opus. a great range of sounds and sonic visualisation. if you didn't like this and didn't like nfr i really just don't know what to tell you. that's on you. i would encourage people to listen to the band eels' if they enjoyed this album and sound, or maybe if you didn't so you can understand alternative music in this style a little bit more. i think this will be her best critically received album and i'm really interested to see how critics perceive this album from the stand-point of what they will consider it's genre, sound and inspiration but also how their going to rate it. i think this is potentially her first album that may receive a grammy if they nominate her in the right categories.

 

for once, i'm really looking forward to reading the reviews and consensus on this album. i have a feeling this will be her highest metacritic score too. the level of galaxy brain in the production of this album is insanity. i'm really looking forward to the release.

 

come on fantano just give it a fucking nine we know you want to.

 

okay girl now I'm on the edge of getting the alt cover cd, haven't listened to it yet because I want to wait for the release date and your review sounds like it's a really promising album

NFR isn't my fav, but I enjoy it

what a hard decision to make  thank you for writing this

[honeybadger 40,620]

i don't think there are any spoilers in here so i'm just going to put it out there 

 

okay now that i've heard it a few times i think i'll delete it off my itunes and try to not listen to it again until the 19th. by this point i've already forgotten what the tracks sound like (not in a bad way i just have a terrible memory), so on the 19th it'll still be somewhat of a fresh listen!

 

it'll be like experiencing a second listen for the second time (not a first listen because honestly you can only have a 1st listen once) and i already can't wait to hear it again  and i'm going to do an album rundown leading up to the 19th so i can kinda reset on her discography and then go into chemtrails feeling fresher and more prepared to absorb it than i did yesterday <3

 

Spoiler

but at the moment i LOVE it, literally agree with every @electra said and it's a gorgeous album. definitely needs a moment to sit before i enter into it though. and i want to listen to it on the day before the first day of spring (march 20th) because that just feels so RIGHT for this album.

 

[Theo 318]

Dark but just a game

Spoiler

Do we have any idea who is the song about? I have the impression that the line "no rose left on the vines" may be some clue. And the recurring  "whatever"s, but this is probably too generic to help. And I assume this person is a man,  because I think that in the beginning she doesn't mean Jack but that guy (that's what he would say to me).

 

EDIT: OK, maybe "he" is Jack, since later "I was a pretty little thing" sounds more like something that a woman would say. But not sure.  

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Theo

[electra 20,630]

4 minutes ago, prettywhenimhigh said:

 

okay girl now I'm on the edge of getting the alt cover cd, haven't listened to it yet because I want to wait for the release date and your review sounds like it's a really promising album

NFR isn't my fav, but I enjoy it

what a hard decision to make  thank you for writing this

 

my best overall note is: this album sounds like it will go down well with critics, and is something many die hard lana stans will appreciate in the way it references her past and future. i'm definitely happy to have snagged a lot of different copies of this album. i couldn't be happier that in the first era she absolutely shafts us with variations its for an album that was truly worth it.

 

BUY CHEMTRAILS!

[WildMustang 14,725]

Spoiler

Dark But Just A Game knowing it's the coolest track on the album 

 

[White Hot Forever 4,138]

Spoiler

At first I didn't know how I felt about white dress but I'm listening to it again and the vocals really are iconic. She's never done anything like it before and it's refreshing. They're so airy and light, it's just so easy to listen to. I could listen to it on repeat and I don't think it would age. Probably one of my favorites 

 

[WildMustang 14,725]

Spoiler

Didn't Lana said about WD that it's a song that you know exactly what it is about when it ends? Well she doesn't know how to describe songs 

 

[honeybadger 40,620]

4 minutes ago, White Hot Forever said:

  Hide contents

At first I didn't know how I felt about white dress but I'm listening to it again and the vocals really are iconic. She's never done anything like it before and it's refreshing. They're so airy and light, it's just so easy to listen to. I could listen to it on repeat and I don't think it would age. Probably one of my favorites 

 

 

Spoiler

literally never been done before.... what an icon for giving us vocals we've NEVER heard before from her and endlessly bringing new things to the table... i love this song and just like all the tracks on this album it's so INTERESTING and unique