Lorde
Virgin
REPUBLIC
If 2021’s Solar Power was a bit too bright, quiet, and folksy-free for the Lorde you expected to last forever—the mournfully gothic, romantically introspective one who kept her sunroof down—her newly released Virgin will be more your speed. Splitting from pop producer Jack Antonoff and enlisting Jim-E Stack, Dan Nigro, and Buddy Ross as her new spirit guides through maiden territory, Lorde retains the tainted-love throb of electro rhythm and plush sequencers-synthesizers for all that occurs on her fourth studio album while welcoming a set of lyrical tattle-tales that are high on affection, low on gloss, indifferent on subtlety, and mostly geared toward transcendence and sneaky sexuality—all with the meretricious vocal presence to match.
Frank and fast as a song titled “Hammer” might suggest, Lorde enunciates lyrics like “There’s a heat in the pavement, my mercury’s racing / Don’t know if it’s love or if it’s ovulation” on the album opener with the poise of a doctor racing through a patient visit. Sex and slink stay a preoccupation of Lorde’s throughout “Shapeshifter” and its mix of winged strings and cranked-up beats as she swallows lyrics such as “I’ve been up on a pedestal, but tonight I just want to fall.” It would be wrong, however, to assume that she solely has carnal knowledge on her brain. Growing up in public, as she has (“Royals” dropped when she was 17), the vocalist and lyricist revels in post-teen euphoria of “What Was That” and the intimately detailed mother-daughter rivalry and pride that fills “Favourite Daughter.”
With its messy tech organicism and abstracted viewpoint toward direct address, I don’t know if Virgin is better than Melodrama or even its equal in terms of might, melody, and mood depiction. Virgin is, though, a solid look at the intimacy of growing up absurd with everyone watching.
