Her fans have waited with bated breath for another album from this pop diva. After 2013’s self titled effort, ‘Lemonade’ is an album that sees Beyonce coming to terms with herself and where she is today. To that we may add that it involves her celebrated relationship with Jay Z, her family, and her personal side which she has never been afraid to show.

Beyoncé's sixth studio album and her second visual album, features 12 new songs and a corresponding short film. The lyrics contributed by many guests writers, are corny, making bold lyrical statements in the audio version as well as in the accompanying DVD disc. The album inlay is bereft of lyrics, but the booklet has loads of colour and black and white photographs from the music videos and also a few personal photographs. This conceptual project has lyrics that dwell on her community, the black people and in particular black feminism, besides also focusing on every woman's journey of self knowledge and healing.

The R & B sound laced with a bit of soul is well orchestrated, lyrically as well as musically. The album opens on a slow tone with Pray You Catch Me is lyrically direct when Beyonce speaks a stark lyric “I can taste the dishonesty, it’s all over your breath” as she deals with the problem of an unfaithful lover. The songs slips into a mega hit of the year Hold Up, a reggae-tinged number, one that sees Beyonce as a woman possessed, marking the territory around her lover, the music video would reveal more about what she does on a street with her baseball bat. With a heavy bass beat, the effect is hallucinogenic, with a deep baseline. The melodic Jack White collaboration Don’t Hurt Yourself, is pop laced with a bit of foul lyrics spoken in a moment of rage.

Sorry, a very repetitious word in the song, gets up-tempo and then suddenly drops back and jumps back to the keep the flow of the song. It could become one of the better a club anthems on the party circuit.

Daddy Lessons gives you just what it says, with a brass edge to it, before she goes up with the track that talks about how her father brought her up, helping her fight for justice for the bad men in her life. The acoustic guitar playing country style is a neat and plucky, shadowing her roots from her homeland.

The pitch slows down slightly on Love Drought and the fantastic piano laced Sandcastles, both of which are fine ballads, with Sandcastles in particular bringing out Beyonce’s rich vocal capability. It has a raw feeling to it, very emotional and personal.

After an 80 second break in Forward, we get on a track that brings in Kendrick Lamar on Freedom which speaks of a cry for liberation. Bey goes ballistic on this piece with a shout for freedom.

All Night is a powerful mid-tempo song, punctuated with a fantastic horn sample, a backing chorus with Beyonce finding herself empowered by true love, in who else but Bey and Jay-Z as a couple. ‘Lemonade’ closes with Formation, a funky piece that has kinky lyrics, a heavy bassline to it and an unforgettable beat. It is very infectious and surely a tune that might never get out of your head.

‘Lemonade’ is Beyoncé at her most benevolent, and also her most unadulterated. Like most of her previous albums, she takes the lyrics and makes you really eat out of her. As a body of songs, the album presents Bey at her most skilled and in orchestral mode creating a mix of crazy anthems which all goes to make a great album. The songs have a lot to say in a very entertaining way.

-- Reviewed By Verus Ferreira