Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 4,132
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Ultraviolence Metacritic: 74
CURRENT METACRITIC SCORE: 81
Eligible for Metacritic:
Entertainment Weekly - 100
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Del Rey has spent countless hours stalking the night, searching for answers and trying on various guises — and Ultraviolence is the masked bacchanalia that finally unleashes the full potential lurking beneath the hype.
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Pretty Much Amazing - 91
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Del Rey takes the well-deserved opportunity to strike back at her detractors on “Brooklyn Baby” and “Money Power Glory” (maybe my two favorite songs of the bunch). A great album, however, is the best revenge.
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All Music - 80
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As these songs shift her sound into more mature and nuanced places, it becomes clear that every deadpan affectation, lispy lyric, and overblown allusion to desperate living has been a knowing move in the creation of the strange, beguiling character -- and sonic experience -- we know as Lana Del Rey.
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The Guardian: 4/5 80
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The songwriting on her new album is as good as or better than on Born to Die, but Lana Del Rey needs new things to sing about
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DIY Magazine - 80
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A record that’s a hundred times more cohesive than Born to Die.
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Pop Matters - 80
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Lana Del Rey hasn’t quite reached the celebrity status to be deemed an icon, but her obsession with them is such that it will be interesting to see if one day, she’ll join their ranks in the public consciousness. In the interim, Ultraviolence is a beautiful argument for her relevance and her potential longevity.
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Pitchfork - 71
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Still, it’d be wrong to overlook the many things Ultraviolence does well, and how sui generis Lana Del Rey is. She’s a pop music original full-stop, and there are not nearly enough of those around.
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Drowned In Sound - 70
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As an album to invest in, feel sentimental about, or be genuinely thrilled by, Ultraviolence falls short. Take it simply as a sumptuously-presented pop record, though, and you have to wonder if you’ll hear a better one this year
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Slant Magazine - 70
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Repeated listens reveal nuances, like the acoustic guitar bristling beneath the blues-rock verses of "Sad Girl" and the male backing vocals layering the final chorus of "Brooklyn Baby," but the album's steadfast narcotic tempo and Del Rey's languid delivery, doused in shoegaze-style reverb throughout, conjure a hazy picture of the singer swaying wearily in some sweltering sweat-lodge of a dive in the deep South.
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Clash Magazine - 70
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For all its lows-inspired highs, ‘Ultraviolence’ is not quite the complete picture. But should a true director’s cut of this beguiling artist come at the next time of asking, she’ll realise a timelessness that so many of her influences had to die for.
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Los Angeles Times - 75
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But within all that hoopla, though, is a central truth: Musically and lyrically, Del Rey possesses a pure kernel of individualism that's not only admirable but worthy of celebration. No one else sounds like her.
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The Independent - 60
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Which is to say that Ultraviolence is more of the same, but less. Musically, talk has focused on the recruitment of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach as producer and the promise of a rawkier Del Rey.
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The Observer - 60
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Even though there are half-a-dozen high points here, the stylistic shifts that kept Born to Die complicated are missing. The end result is stylish and cogent but, as a consequence, perhaps a teensy bit samey.
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New York Daily News - 40
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The sound is so dense it threatens to asphyxiate the singer, which may just be the point. Everything about her work plays into fantasies of a potentially fatal manipulation.
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The 405 - 30
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The most damning aspect of Ultraviolence is that, by the end, you really couldn't care less.
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