After a four-year wait, Lorde released her most gritty, polished and lyrically complex album to date – putting everything on the table and leaving nothing for interpretation.
Lorde has a habit of shying away from the public eye after she releases each album of hers. After the release of her soft-psychedelic album Solar Power in 2021, nobody knew where she was or what she was doing (aside from her appearance on the “Girl, so confusing” Charli xcx remix last year). Taking the time to experience life without a social media presence is one of the reasons that her music has remained so extraordinarily authentic. Lorde put every part of her into this record–mind, body and soul–and that shines in the distinct and unique lyricism.
Many of the lines across the album are intentionally striking, as she explores (wo)manhood and identity as a 20-something. “There’s broken blood in me, it passed through my mother from her mother down to me” she cries on “Clearblue” while she compartmentalizes a pregnancy scare and her ability to be a mother. There are deep-rooted themes in this album of rebirth, and this moment adds to the aforementioned complexities of navigating complicated relationships, both with herself and other people. Producer Jim-E-Stack juxtaposes these profound breakthroughs with interesting and innovative instrumentation, as Lorde returns to a more pop sound, yet maintains a dark energy around it.
There is pandemonium in reinvention, and not acknowledging it creates the facade of a “changed woman”, denying humans’ nature to evolve while grasping on to their own identity. She plays around with this sentiment on one of the best pop songs of the decade, “Shapeshifter” claiming, “I’ve been the ice, I’ve been the flame. I’ve been the siren, been the saint”. Portraying herself as a shapeshifter ties back into the central theme of this album. She feels everything so deeply and is constantly growing into new versions of herself. Taking on this album resembles a sort-of spiritual experience of self-discovery, and it proves the magic of anything that Lorde touches, which is only amplified by the genius of Jim-E-Stack.
