Lana Del Rey is a mood. The singer/songwriter’s new record Norman Fucking Rockwell doesn’t much resemble her 2012 smash hit Born to Die, which lanced its perfect, crisp tracks like spears into the heart of US mythos and morbidity. No, Norman Fucking Rockwell is more like 2014’s Ultraviolence: a continuous river that flows forth and swallows us up in romance and sorrow. In her songs, Del Rey is an intellectual cool girl. “You write, I tour, we make it work,” she croons on “Venice Bitch,” but when the men in Del Rey’s life are cruel, she just sort of compartmentalizes it. And while that may be frustrating on a feminist level, it’s also a bold, honest account of the realities love, in both Del Rey’s nostalgic fantasy and today. by Suzette Smith