Every four years: a presidential election, a leap year, a Lorde album. Though Lorde hasn’t exactly been off the grid since her 2021 release, Solar Power — her cameo on Brat catapulted Charli XCX’s album into instant-classic territory — she’s definitely kept quiet, as she often does between touring and releasing music. Over the past few months, she’s posted the odd picture of her with a microphone or wearing headphones, the type of innocuous content that suggested a new album might be on the horizon. When? We didn’t know. What would it sound like? Hard to say. Left in the darkness of wondering and wandering, all we could do was wait for news. As of April 9, however, what was once far is now near: New Lorde is coming.
First, Lorde cleared out her Instagram (of all two posts that were on there) and shared a TikTok comment on her Story that read “WAIT WHAT?????” That comment is in reply to her latest post, a quick video of her running through Washington Square Park that features a snippet of a new song.
Credit: Lorde
“Since I was 17, I gave you everything,” she sings in a new track. It’s reminiscent of Melodrama in its percussive, flute-driven melody. “What was that?” she asks herself and the listener. The comments reflect a collective sigh of relief: “This is about to change the trajectory of my life,” wrote one TikTok user. The 15-second clip won’t sate our thirst for long, but it’s a sign that the Lorde drought is ending with a storm on the horizon.
