We’re only five weeks into 2012, but we’ve already been blessed with what’s likely to be the most hyped, discussed and debated album of the year – Lana Del Rey’s debut, Born To Die. Del Rey’s fascinating backstory of image transformation ensures that her career is simply never going to be just about the music – but this being an album review, I’ll try to keep it as musically-focused as possible.

Born To Die starts with a bang. Three of the first four tracks represent Del Rey’s most listened-to songs (Born To Die, Blue Jeans and Video Games), while the other (Off To The Races) is the best of the album’s previously unheard material.

Everything wonderful about this enigmatic artist is catapulted to the fore in the album’s stunning first act. Her voice leaps between the high-pitched ‘harlot, scarlet’ of Off To The Races, to the breathy, weary woman scorned of Blue Jeans, as she employs her distinctive vocal range to perfectly play out the narrative in each song. The lyrics, at this early stage, are flawless too – “You fit me better/Than my favourite sweater” – as Del Rey flits between an F. Scott Fitzgerald heroine and a modern day pop star.

Disappointingly, the pace of the opening doesn’t come close to being maintained. Diet Mountain Dew and National Anthem grate on the ears, both musically and lyrically, with the latter’s most sinful line being “Money is the reason we exist/Everybody knows it, it’s a fact, kiss kiss.”

Dark Paradise is a brief return to form (and features perhaps the album’s biggest chorus), but tracks ten to thirteen in particular exhaust the listener with their lyrical and thematic clichés, overproduction and lack of distinction from one another.

Born To Die falls short as a full-length record – a real shame, considering this young lady’s undoubted talent. It feels slightly rushed out of production, but as Del Rey’s lyrics ironically point out, fame is fleeting – and it needs to be capitalised upon when it comes along.

-Alex King-