Track Review: Lana Del Rey, “Ultraviolence”

On the heels of lead single “West Coast” and album cut “Shades of Cool,” Lana Del Rey has premiered the title track from her upcoming LP, Ultraviolence. She slurs some expectedly eyebrow-raising lyrics (“I can hear sirens, sirens/He hit me and it felt like a kiss”) throughout the laconic, string-laden torch song, making reference to a man named Jim and pledging her devotion in Spanglish during a spoken bridge: “Yo soy la princesa…You’re my cult leader.” Del Rey’s self-deprecating masochism reaches a new high (or low) here, as she lamentably conflates pain with love, but it’s hard not to be seduced by both the singer’s hazy, misguided bliss and producer Dan Auerbach’s woozy atmospherics.

Ultraviolencedrops June 17th.

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