As Empress Of, Lorely Rodriguez has spent the past decade moving between punchy, upbeat synth-pop and introspective ballads with unselfconscious ease. Even when she’s leaned toward more mainstream pop, as on 2022’s Save Me EP, the Honduran American producer and singer-songwriter’s key influences have shined through. Whether she’s channeling the vertiginous serenades of Cocteau Twins or the contorted stylings of Imogen Heap, her catalog bursts with fizzy, unpredictable love songs in English and Spanish, which have landed her spots opening for pop stars like Carly Rae Jepsen and Rina Sawayama. On her fourth album, the independently released For Your Consideration, Rodriguez dials into an insatiable new groove, reprising an effusive, sensual point of view over propulsive dance and electropop. It’s the most intricate Empress Of album to date, a dazzling showcase for Rodriguez’s unexpected vocal and production approach as she experiences the peaks and valleys of heated romance.
Rodriguez executive-produced For Your Consideration and tapped a fleet of other rising songwriters and producers to assist, including Casey MQ, Umru, Cecile Believe, and Nick León. The diverse spread helps map out the album’s mischievously unpredictable backdrops: These songs corkscrew and pull Rodriguez’s vocals like taffy, twisting into structures of their own; it’s as if she took Björk’s Medúlla as a conceptual north star and ran with it at full speed to the club. An opening suite of whispers morphs into a pitch-shifted pattern on the seductive “Sucia,” whose bilingual singsong verses lead to a deliciously bawdy chorus, her voice rising to a vibrant whoop. Later, her backing vocals swarm into a more ominous, chittering turn on the standout “Preciosa,” adding texture to the song’s deep bass and passionate come-ons. “Entra a mi mar/Mójate ya/Ya tú verás/Que te enamoras” (Enter my sea/Get wet/You’ll see that you’ll fall in love) she sings gently, before her voice crumples into a cooing, stuttering rhythm.
For Your Consideration thrives on the elasticity of the human voice, while its lyrics turn from underhanded lovers to the flush of new affairs. Gasps and hiccups shape the fricative beat on the tender opening title track, which dissects a series of red flags, letting her words linger with fading desire. Here she riffs on the awards-season “for your consideration” campaigns that actors and directors run as a metaphor for an unbalanced relationship; the line, repeated during the chorus, takes on a pleading tone that slowly grows more steely with confidence. “You wrote the script,” she allows, coming to the realization with sharp lucidity. “Your words, not mine.”
The rest of the album bears out that romantic push-pull, narrating lustful euphoria and restless longing over an electropop framework. Mid-album highlights, like the warped “Femenine” and woozy “Fácil,” pulse with the heat of a club night packed to the walls, gilding the album with her most memorable, straight-ahead dance-pop songs since her debut. On the former track, her Spanish lyrics play with the feminine and masculine in an assertive, lustful search for a man to dom, chirping in rapid succession over a surging beat as snippets of her pitch-shifted voice skitter about during its delirious finale. Rodriguez is utterly comfortable in the flirtatious role, opening up dynamic avenues for her style to flourish while maintaining a roguish attitude.
When Rodriguez leans into a more vulnerable frame of mind, the album doesn’t lose momentum. The bittersweet “Lorelei” takes on the persona of a jilted lover, adding details to her partner’s infidelity over a prickly synth flurry. “I wanna believe/That someone wasn’t here,” she implores. “I smell it on the sheets/Found earrings I don’t wear.” The song’s percussive chorus taps into an intoxicating well of jealousy: “What’s her name? What’s her name?” Rodriguez begs over a dizzying beat. “Does she know how much she made me cry?”
Rodriguez’s conceptual vision and pirouetting vocals throughout hold For Your Consideration’s deft balancing act together. Even on the album’s more typical ballads, like the syrupy, 2000s pop-tinged “Kiss Me” with Rina Sawayama, or the charging closer “What’s Love” with indie pop trio MUNA, she consistently pulls you deeper into her orbit. During the latter, Rodriguez finds solace in the intricacies of loving and having loved despite being burned in the process. For Your Consideration’s prismatic palette and unabashed candor proves her point, finding beauty and vigor in every little fluctuation that desire has to offer.
