SOS Deluxe: Lana

That willingness to showcase emotional mess carries over from SOS proper, but Lana is an altogether more subtle album: Its crush songs don’t carry as many caveats, and there are few outright vindictive or depressive moments in the vein of “I Hate U” or “Ghost in the Machine.” The sprawled-out R&B track “Diamond Boy (DTM),” luxuriates in the warmth of new affection; the arrangement is spacious but sophisticated, ending with a fleet, filtered rap verse that sounds totally disconnected from the song’s noodling guitar and enveloping blasts of sub-bass. It’s a sweet, canny outro—a musical manifestation of quieting racing thoughts to better enjoy the moment. The soaring “Another Life” is a breakup song, but it’s just as generous, poignant without any reservation: “I don’t care who you marry/Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine/Maybe in another life.” In the two years since SOS, SZA’s outlook has shifted, becoming more graceful and optimistic without losing its sense of tension; now, she just seems more interested in finding inner peace than capturing the attention of any one fuckboy. As she sings on “No More Hiding,” an album opener that combines delicate, bossa-nova-ish guitar and a yearning synth line and ends up sounding like it sprung from the same patch of alien wilderness she stands in on the album cover: “I wanna feel sun on my skin/Even if it burns or blinds me/I wanna be purified within.”

That softer outlook is reflected in the feel of Lana, which bridges the gap between CTRL’s lush, ambling indie R&B and the aggressively hook-forward nature of SOS. Although Lana sounds undeniably like a major label pop album, its component parts can only be described as NTS Breakfast Show-core: The sample of Mort Garson’s “Plantasia” that runs throughout “Saturn” turns it into something wondrous and exploratory, mirroring the shivery, extraterrestrial qualities of SZA’s voice, while an errant interpolation of “The Girl From Ipanema” adds a wrinkle to the smiley TikTok pop of “BMF.” “Kitchen,” which makes a strong challenge for the title of SZA’s most luminescent song, turns the Isley Brothers’ “Voyage to Atlantis” into what feels like an Alvvays ballad, its unfussy arrangement and hazy ambiance glowing with the luster of a full moon. SZA’s voice is better suited to this kind of earthiness, which only appeared in flashes on SOS, as are her hooks, which are always indelible but rarely lean; the chorus of “Kitchen,” which flutters along like a piece of pollen on the wind, feels of a piece with music that’s more freeform and ingenious.

Throughout Lana, SZA sounds totally sure in her ability to command a stadium-sized audience with music that’s ambling and sometimes insular. “Drive,” a highlight toward the album’s end, is a rare moment of metatext. Over plaintive guitar, SZA unleashes a series of stream-of-consciousness verses about all the anxiety that roils underneath Lana, feelings of grandeur and self-doubt and contempt: “I keep pretending everyone’s as good as me/Shit’s so weird I cannot speak/Balled so hard, I think I peaked.” At the chorus, she stops abruptly and begins to sing: “Just drivin’/Just tryna get my head right/It’ll all be better when I/Just gotta get my head right.” SZA’s music can feel claustrophobic at times simply because of how deeply it is rooted in her own thoughts. “Drive,” on the other hand, feels infinite—the sound of total freedom.

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.