Luster (album)

Succeeding Somerville's 2019 debut project, All My People, Luster consists of twelve songs with a total runtime of thirty-eight minutes and twenty seconds. The album incorporates elements of shoegaze, post-punk, and ambient music, and centers on the theme of homecoming. Somerville wrote and recorded the album in Connemara.^[2]

"Projections" was released as the album's first single on 30 September 2024.^[4] It was followed by the release of the second single, "Garden", on 19 February 2025.^[5] The third single, "Spring", was released on 23 April 2025.^[6]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
The Guardian	[1]
New Noise	[7]
Hot Press	[8]
The Skinny	[9]
Paste	8/10[10]

Paul Simpson of AllMusic described the album as "an accomplished, affecting work that finds strength and clarity through introspection and forgiveness."^[3] Shaad D'Souza of the Guardian wrote in his review of Luster, "these songs reveal themselves to be unusually swollen with texture and detail: harps twinkle like broken glass and baggy breakbeats reverberate widely, seemingly recorded through a bedroom wall."^[1]

Pitchfork rated the album 8.5 out of ten and stated, "The Irish musician's gossamer dream pop is both mythic and real, a wild and ancient landscape in which her own figure is just barely perceptible."^[2] New Noise remarked, "Luster's strength lies in its ability to explain the unexplainable; to emphasize a feeling only one's heart is able to comprehend—without words and without regret", and rated the album four out of five.^[7]

Hot Press assigned the album a rating of eight out of ten, calling it "a terrific album from an artist of genuine substance."^[8] The Skinny gave Luster a rating of four stars out of five, noting that "On her 4AD debut, Maria Somerville redefines dreampop, goth, shoegaze and more, stitching colour into a tapestry of blacks, whites and greys."^[9]

Caroline Nieto of Paste gave Luster a score of 8.0 out of 10, writing that "The soft, subliminal world of Maria Somerville’s Luster is one of my favorite places music has taken me this year."^[10]