What things are. In the times of ‘Born to Die’, one of the first criticisms made of Lana del Rey was that she didn’t really have talent, that it was all artifice and excessive attention to that image created between aesthetics and letters, and that if she was there it was… because of her father and his connections with the music industry. More than a decade later, with many mouths silent, a couple of masterpieces in between such as ‘Ultraviolence’ y ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ (minimum) and, ultimately, Lana established as one of the best composers of our time, it is her father who publishes her debut album. And now the same thing happens but in the opposite sense, what that miss would say: the main criticism or directly the gag regarding ‘Lost at sea’ It’s just that he wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for his daughter.
This is true? Yes and no. Evidently since the project was announced there was fear that ‘Lost at sea’ It was a poorly executed whim, a whim that wouldn’t happen if Rob wasn’t Lana’s father. The thing is that this album may certainly be a whim, it may not even have been released (at least not with a major) if that were not the case, but of course the product is well taken care of. On the other hand, it is true that it does not differ much from other similar works, and it has few songs that particularly stand out. And, in part, this could be caused by the existence in their own environment of the aforementioned fear. Lana sings on two songs, but also some of her trusted staff are involved here: the tireless Jack Antonoff is one of those involved in the production, along with her regular collaborator Laura Sisk, Zach Dawes (collaborator of Arctic Monkeys or Sharon Van Etten , but also from Lana herself) or the ARIA-nominated composer Luke Howard. Maybe Grant is constrained by such a team (including his daughter), who wants to take care of him and make sure he does well? Perhaps he would benefit from having more freedom?
It may be, and we may be clear of doubts if there is a second album, but at the moment there are also great cuts in ‘Lost At Sea’. It has been compared to the work of Harold Budd, who may be familiar to you from his work with Brian Eno and Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins (and who precisely died in the first waves of the coronavirus), and it is true that there is a connection, although as We say there are also moments when Grant shines with his own light. Three very different examples are ‘Setting sail on a distant horizon’not in vain chosen to present the project, the brief ‘A delicate mist surrounds me’and, as the opposite pole, ‘The mermaids lullaby’which extends up to six minutes in length, being the one that most feels like one of those journeys that Grant talks about and in which he intends to take us along the tracklist.
It is curious, and almost foreshadowingthat one of the songs of ‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard?’Lana’s last album, was called ‘Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing’, and that this debut of the aforementioned father has in mind, even from the title, the sea and the peace that it can bring with it. Lana is, as she could not be otherwise, indirectly responsible for two of the best songs on the album: the homonymous one and, above all, ‘Hollywood Bowl’which in addition to winking its melodic eye at ‘Sweet Carolina’ (their first collaboration), contains a phrase as risky as “I know I’m not Joni Mitchell / but I’ve got a dad who plays like Billy Joel”. The truth is that Lana del Rey is closer to being Joni Mitchell (although it may seem sacrilege to some) than her father is to being Billy Joel, but, again, you can’t say that Dad Grant has anything to be ashamed of with this one. nice debut.