CREDIT: LANA DEL REY (THE GREEN BUILDING)
Lana Del Rey's Honeymoon is 14 tracks of depressing rhythms, with little grit to the lyrics to help you the album; don't waste your time.

The illustrious Lana Del Rey has returned with her third studio album Honeymoon, which dropped on Sept. 18 and plays out over a moderate 14 tracks.

If Del Rey stays true to form, I'm sure we'll see a deluxe version of this album before the year is finished, but in all seriousness I don't think it will make much of a difference. Go ahead and take the longest honeymoon you can because you won't have a busy schedule anytime soon.

Del Rey has put out some decent tracks over the years with her debut hit “Video Games” still being played on the radio, but they've all embodied the same sort of grandeur and sadness.

It's a nice change when she comes on the radio, but after an entire hour of dreary and somber crooning, it gets a little old. To put it in perspective, listening to this album was the first time I've actually been excited to have a ‘Spotify Premium' commercial come up between songs.

Sure this is a great album, if you're looking for something to highlight your crushing breakup in the middle of January. If that's not your thing however, and you don't want to be bedridden with grief until winter hits, do yourself a favour and run far, far away from Del Rey.

This album might be dreadfully sad but at least it's got some pretty catchy songs. Well, maybe not a whole lot but there's at least a few catchy tunes on here.

And by a few I really just meant two. Only two of these 14 tracks have any hint of a vocal hook. If you're going to make an immensely depressing record like this, it might help to write a few lines that are actually memorable. Otherwise, all the whining melds together into one long and haunting compilation of complaints.

Don't get me wrong, Del Rey definitely has the kind of voice to carry an album such as this. The issue is that none of her melodies or lyrics are all that memorable. Actually I take that back. Her lyrics are just plain bad. Take the chorus of “Salvatore” for example:

“Ah-ah-ah-ah

Ah-ah-ah-ah

Cacciatore

La-da-da-da-da

La-da-da-da-da

Limousines

Ah-ah-ah-ah

Ah-ah-ah-ah

Ciao amore

La-da-da-da-da

La-da-da-da-da

Soft ice cream”

If she wanted to sing la-da-da for an album, she should have made a jazz compilation. Del Rey seems to reference the genre every chance she gets anyway.

Thankfully, not all the lyrics on Honeymoon are quite this bad. Songs like “24” are actually rather informative, with every single phrase led by “There's only 24 hours in a day”.

Boy am I thankful for this song because somehow I got through the first 21 years of my life without discovering that fact.

Del Rey's lyrical ingenuity on this album is wrapped up by an offhand reference to “Space Oddity” in her track “Terrence Loves You” and a butchering of the famous Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” in her track “Music to Watch Boys to.” She compares nature's gold to lemonade... lemonade.

I understand you're struggling to find rhymes for your lines but your verses are crimes. Please just find someone else to write for you because it's making my head hurt.

It would seem that the vocals aren't quite the focal point that they were meant to be, but at least there are plenty of instrumental hooks, but even this is lacking.

The instrumentation, which is primarily acoustic piano and synth pads, consists solely of sparse chords that loaf around sluggishly.

It's as if the performers on Honeymoon are doing everything they can to stay awake against the monotony of Del Rey's sorrows. Even the drummer, on the rare occasions he's actually playing more than a kick drum, is reduced to painfully slow and simplistic rhythms.

On the whole, this album would sound a lot better if it were played about four times faster and wasn't drowned in reverb like it was going out of style.

Honeymoon has got to be the most depressing album of 2015 and if you're thinking of picking up a copy, here's a list of things that you'd probably enjoy more: going to the dentist, climbing the C.N. Tower, eating lunch off the floor of a public bathroom, deleting your final project minutes before the due date and assembling Ikea furniture.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5