For the past few weeks, Beyoncé has kept fans in a tizzy about her mysterious Lemonade project. She dropped several teasers, still it was unsure just what the singer was working on. Now, we finally have an answer: it’s a new album. We shouldn’t be so surprised; Beyoncé pulled the same surprise move for her stellar self-titled album in 2013. Bey premiered the album via an hour long HBO special and it may just be her most personal work yet.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z are music’s ultimate power couple, but if these new songs are anything to go by not everything is marital bliss. The album opens with “Pray You Catch Me,” a song where she discovers that her lover is cheating and lying. Beyoncé sings, “You can taste the dishonesty, it’s all over your breath as you pass it off so cavalier.” It’s a melancholy introduction of the initial pain of finding out that infidelity has occurred.

Bey continues the theme of infidelity on “Hold Up.” Beyoncé seems to tell her lover that other women can’t compare to what she brings to the table. “Back up, they don’t love you like I love you,” she sings. She later threatens violence if things continue to go too far: “Strolling through your call list, I don’t want to lose my pride, but I’m gonna f— me up a b—.” The anger reaches its crescendo on “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” as Beyoncé takes listeners into a full-fledged argument with assistance from Jack White on guitar: “Blindly in love, I f—s with you, until I realized I’m too much for you…tonight I’m f—g up all your s— boy!” She ends the song with a blatant threat: “This is your final warning, you know I give your life, if you try this s— again, you gonna lose your wife.”

“Daddy Lessons” infuses New Orleans’ second line traditions with country and blues as Beyoncé tells a story where her father teaches her to shoot any man who attempts to do her wrong. “Love Drought,” “Sand Castles,” and “Forward” serve as songs where the worst issues have been confronted and the thoughts of how to handle the relationship in the future become evident.

Just when it seems like things are heading for the worse in comes the ballad “All Night” brings the entire project together. Beyoncé appears to forgive and now understands that even fairytales take hard work. Every good relationship is built on the idea of accepting each other’s flaws and surviving the bad times. “True love never has to hide, I trade your broken wings for mines,” she sings.

Kendrick Lamar provides another magnificent verse on the powerful “Freedom,” and The Weeknd joins Beyoncé to pay homage to strippers on “6-Inch.” “Formation,” which caused a stir when initially released, closes the album.

Overall, Lemonade is Beyoncé’s version of Here, My Dear— an album that detailed the fallout between Marvin Gaye and his wife Anna Gordy. Lemonade probably won’t be remembered as her most significant project, but it’s arguably Beyoncé’s most vulnerable moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okGJ-Fto36Q

Article originally posted by our friends at RollingOut