In January 2025, Lorely Rodriguez lost her childhood home to the Eaton Fire, which decimated her Los Angeles neighbourhood of Altadena. The force behind Empress Of channelled the knot of emotions brought up by that devastation and its aftermath into her fifth album. Braiding her beat-heavy electropop with interludes from her mother—who, after the fire, plunged herself into rebuilding the house from the ground up—Empress Of has created a depiction of grief as a force for dance-floor-borne rebirth. “Blue Light” turns apprehension about returning to regular life into a thoughtfully funky rumination; on “SYW”, Empress Of and hyperpop muse Cecile Believe trade sharp-eyed flirtations over a skittering beat. Dream House ends with “Dream House”, a boom-bap love letter to her mother’s support and resilience.