If the earthy ennui and sun-soaked New Zealand setting of Lorde’s final album Photo voltaic Energy didn’t do it for you, you’ll be happy to be taught she’s returned to Melodrama mode. Actually, she’s returned to New York Metropolis, the place she crafted Melodrama practically 9 years in the past, to have fun (and promote) her new single, “What Was That.”
Name it a comeback, a return to kind, or a brand new breakup anthem for the ages — “What Was That” finds Lorde reprising the cathartic pop sound that lots of her followers had been craving for, as soon as once more utilizing her deft songwriting vocabulary to precise knotty, sophisticated emotions. Whereas it’s not probably the most adventurous new providing from the singer, it does teem with maturity and knowledge.
On “What Was That,” Lorde appears again at a vital time in her life, the place she was consumed by a relationship and the brand new experiences related to it, the place private progress was going hand-in-hand with trauma. It’s becoming that the sonics recall the throbbing pop of Melodrama, as a result of “What Was That” serves as the following chapter of that story: these messy early/mid 20s, stuffed with intense rushes and harrowing lows, and the next numbing that units in as you become old.
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Lorde, now 28, captures the expertise of ruminating on earlier experiences, desperately desirous to relive each single good second, and expressing bewilderment that the dangerous ones occurred in any respect. It’s means much less of a ‘keep in mind again then when the whole lot was so easy and I used to be in love?’ track as it’s a fraught montage of reminiscences, a poignant reminder that even probably the most liberating moments of our lives can occur within the foreground of the worst ones. “I didn’t know then, however you’d by no means be sufficient,” she proclaims with conviction within the refrain earlier than the sobering query, “Since I used to be seventeen, I gave you the whole lot/ Now we wake from a dream, child, what was that?”
Principally, Lorde’s been going to remedy. Whereas the providing of a modified perspective is each genuine and refreshing, “What Was That” feels lots like a step sideways than a leap in any course. Maybe that’s because of the track’s slicing, ecstatic manufacturing, which snaps into kind similar to “Inexperienced Mild” did all these years in the past. This time, she’s ditched her Melodrama and Photo voltaic Energy collaborator Jack Antonoff for fellow pop connoisseurs Jim E-Stack and Dan Nigro, who add a contact extra reverb to Lorde’s vocals and steadiness her anthemic hues with tight, syncopated synths and the thwack of a snare drum.
It’s fine-tuned dance pop, nevertheless it’s value questioning what the track would sound like if the cracks started to point out unexpectedly, if the reminiscence collapsed on itself a bit extra. Photo voltaic Energy averted these moments too, however Lorde overcompensated with stirring lyrical moments like “I don’t know, perhaps I’m simply stoned on the nail salon” and Robyn’s monologue about dying.
Nonetheless, what a rush it’s to listen to Lorde break down the aftermath of a relationship with such expressive element and honesty. “I attempted to let no matter has to cross by way of me cross by way of, however that is stayin’ some time, I do know/ It may not let me go,” she sings earlier than the ultimate chorus, a fairly direct means of acknowledging that she gained’t be capable to reply the query, “What was that?” for a while. The great reminiscences, the excessive highs, the craving and grief… it’s all nonetheless caught in her physique. So she’s out within the park, thrashing it out on a desk with strangers, making an attempt to shake it off and stay within the current second. She doesn’t have her solutions, however because the music video for “What Was That” suggests, that gained’t cease her from having enjoyable.