Madonna's "Rebel Heart" Beats On...

She's been begging and relentlessly demanding that she's living for love and on her thirteenth full-length studio album Madonna is proving that her "Rebel Heart" is beating and is very strong indeed. Perhaps her most ambitious bit of work since the pre-millennial deliveries "Ray Of Light" and its follow-up "Music," "Heart" is validated on its uniformly eclectic trajectory.

Madonna has enjoyed the experience of co-collaborating on her recent projects and has appeared less interested in delivering on cathartic full-album production on the basis of her early hits such as"Like A Virgin" and even highly-evolved "Like A Prayer." She's enlisted Diplo, Avicii, Blood Diamonds, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj on this newest journey into what may be considered a "Madonna Version 2.5" after what many considered a misfire on her 2012 release "MDNA."

That largely EDM-driven darkly autotune rant served its purpose, but the Queen of Pop has evolved. She's moved on. Opening up with the club-friendly first single "Living For Love" revealed to us a Madonna that is excitedly enthusiastic of this next phase afforded to her -�pushing the exploration of her musical domination but reminding us that dance is what's she's good at. The rest of "Rebel Heart" diverts from this disco-inspired explosion; sonically delving into more urban-inspired fare.

Even the immediately following track "Devil Pray" produced by electronic music master, Avicii is cooly more subdued than the anthemic house-funk of its predecessor. Darkly soulful, the track skillfully delivers on an electronic bass-line that is both compelling and invitingly weird. "Illuminati" has all the contraptions that have become infamously associated with its producer Kanye West, but it's still nonetheless engaging, and far more enlightened than the cast-off "Bitch I'm Madonna" featuring Nicki Minaj which is just immature.

Revel in the "Rebel"

The album may deceptively give the first-impression of lacking any guile, but this is Madonna after all and her intuitive enguiniety and purpose are irrepressible. The "standard edition" of the album ends with "Wash All Over Me" symphonically and lyrically one of Madonna's most interesting songs ever. The "Deluxe Edition" continues with "Best Night" which nostalgically feels like a 70's sex-romp even when it is explicitly self-referential; in fact the sexually provocative setlist all-over this album feels stunted and dated. The title track has a winning way of reeling it all in and wrapping it up tenderly and gifted lovingly.

The six additional tracks delivered onto the expansive "Super Deluxe Version" of the release (not withstanding the additional remixes of "Living For Love") provide a fully copious opus with the enthusiastically willful and hopeful "Beautiful Scars," the haunting "Queen" and the paradoxical "Autotune Baby" - tracks that may not have seen the light of day had Madonna's team been more responsibly aware of how easily it was to penetrate the barrier of the pop-icon's impenetrable "Rebel Heart."

Madonna's thirteenth album "Rebel Heart" is available in multiple release editions and digital downloads ranging from $11.99 and up to $24.99 (for the 2-disc "Super Deluxe Edition" on Interscope Records.