While famed American artist Norman Rockwell's paintings often depict an idealistic view of American life, singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey's new album, which references the illustrator extraordinaire in its title, is anything but.

Her sixth full-length work, full of dreamy and evocative ballads, treads themes such as nostalgia, the American identity and relationships.

Yet it also acknowledges the complications that come with the longing for a Hallmark card-type of life and taps occasionally into existential dread.

The title track talks about a pretentious man-child character.

The subject of her affection is as capable of propping her up as in bringing her down: "Your poetry's bad and you blame the news/But I can't change that, and I can't change your mood."

The moody Cinnamon Girl delves into an unsound, yet intense relationship ("But if you hold me without hurting me/You'll be the first who ever did"), while the meandering, nine-minute Venice B***h matches a pair of creative misfits ("You write, I tour, we make it work/You're beautiful and I'm insane/We're American-made").

A collaboration with producer and pop maverick Jack Antonoff (he has worked with the likes of singers Taylor Swift, Lorde and St Vincent), the generous 14-track album is aurally consistent, hardly veering from a mid-tempo pace and lush, reverb-laden production.

The gauzy vibe is a perfect backdrop for the singer's distinctively dark and impassioned vocals, but she is also assertive when she needs to be.

"I ain't no candle in the wind," she croons in Mariners Apartment Complex. "I'm the board, the lightning, the thunder."

Pop-culture giants from the past loom large in the album and there are references to Joni Mitchell's early 1970s releases Blue and Ladies Of The Canyon as well as 1960s groups such as The Beach Boys and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The Greatest takes a melancholic trip through the distant and recent past ("The culture is lit, and if this is it, I had a ball"), treading a path that invokes events ranging from David Bowie's early 1970s track Life On Mars and the Los Angeles wildfire to last year's Hawaiian nuclear missile alert and rapper Kanye West's transition to a blond.

The only cover song in the album, Doin' Time, is a gorgeous recreation of the 1996 hit by Californian ska band Sublime's song based on George Gershwin's 1930s standard, Summertime.

Tracks such as California, The Next Best American Record and Happiness Is A Butterfly offer a vivid route through the vast Golden State.

Consistent with the album's fixation with American icons, the singer wraps up the album with heavy references to literary giant Sylvia Plath's post-partum depression in the closing track, Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have - But I Have It.