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Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’ Review: Under the Album’s Warm Surface


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While the New Zealand superstar’s third LP puts on a mellow and relaxed front, it is filled with tension about the modern world.

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Lorde performing in 2018

Photo: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images

A teenager sings quirky, personal songs that are indie-informed but also ready for the pop mainstream: We’ve had two big records along these lines in 2021— Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” and Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever”—but Lorde got there first. When the album “Pure Heroine” was released in fall 2013, the New Zealand-born Ella Yelich-O’Connor was just 16 years old, and it was immediately obvious that she was a major talent. She sang with a cheerful smirk as she derided the indulgences of her peers—the No. 1 hit “Royals” was a commentary on the celebratory materialism found in pop and hip-hop—but she didn’t spare herself from criticism. Her vocal style, much imitated in the years since, was all her own.

Reality shows like “American Idol” had steered young pop stars toward technical displays, but Lorde delivered her lyrics in a half-spoken, rap-like cadence that went from a whisper to a sneer. Powered by “Royals,” which won Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, “Pure Heroine” hit No. 3 on the charts.

Lorde returned in 2017 with “Melodrama,” which inaugurated her partnership with producer-songwriter Jack Antonoff, and sounded very little like its predecessor. Kicking off with the explosive single “Green Light,” the ’80s-inspired LP was bright, loud and joyous, but it didn’t match the commercial success of Lorde’s debut. It’s clear now that chart success is a secondary concern for Lorde. At age 24, she returns with her third album, “Solar Power” (Universal), out Friday, another 90-degree turn that’s entirely different from her previous two records. 

Once again working with Mr. Antonoff, Lorde has crafted a hushed, intimate collection of songs that are light on hooks and heavy on introspection. Its dispatches on the lure of fame and its ultimate emptiness sound like they were composed amid rustic domesticity. You won’t hear these tunes blasting out of cars. It’s a work made for a streaming world, not one driven by radio. These meditations don’t need to count on random encounters to win new fans—they’ll be passed around on social media by existing devotees and listened to alone on headphones.

When the title track was released as a single in June, the accompanying beach-party video hinted at a different direction for the album, one where it might be the ultimate soundtrack to a carefree seaside romp. “The girls are dancing in the sand / And I throw my cellular device in the water,” she sang, seemingly without a care in the world. With its memorable, accumulating structure and singalong chorus, the choice of “Solar Power” as the first single makes sense. But this simplistic ode to positive vibes is an outlier on its parent record. There’s a lot of tension to be found here, even when the presentation is mellow and relaxed. 

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Lorde

Photo: Ophelia Mikkelson Jones

In these songs, Lorde turns to alternative spirituality to cope with the anxiety of the world, like many of her generation. But, the title track aside, nothing is easy. On the opener “The Path,” she introduces herself by saying she was “born in the year of OxyContin”—Purdue Pharma patented the drug in 1996—and sings in the final verse “Now if you’re looking for a savior, well that’s not me.” She suspects healing and tranquility might be found by slowing down and appreciating nature, but getting there is another matter. In the ballad “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” she contemplates her life while high at the titular establishment, unsure if she’s making the right choices or if she should trust her own weed-addled musings. 

Lorde craves the curatives offered by new-age culture, but also realizes its potential for ridiculousness and pokes fun at those who indulge in self-care as a way of avoiding self-reflection. “I heard that you were doing yoga / With Uma Thurman’s mother / Just outside of Woodstock” goes the opening line in “Dominoes,” a brief number in the record’s second half featuring only a plucked guitar and a soft thump of percussion. It’s about a man who uses people and then thinks he can grow as a person by following the right trends. And in the penultimate “Mood Ring” Lorde assumes the character of someone who turns to “sun salutations” and meditation—but away from the yoga mat she’s not sure how she actually feels about anything. 

This push-and-pull—the desire to slow down and leave behind the overload of the digital world, on the one hand, and the knowledge that such pursuits can be empty if undertaken in the wrong spirit, on the other—gives the record a peculiar tension at odds with its placid surface. And the lyrics take on added importance because the arrangements are so minimal. At times, as on the songs “Big Star” and “Leader of a New Regime” late in the album, there’s just enough happening musically to hold one’s interest, which keeps it in good-not-great territory—this is the weakest of her three LPs. But there’s much to admire in its daring quietude. 

“Oceanic Feeling,” the closing track, is a long exhale of a song that begins with voice and a faint keyboard drone and builds to a midtempo ballad with a trip-hop lope in the drums. The singer is noticing the beauty around her and experiencing gratitude along with a certain amount of peace, and it feels earned. Ms. Yelich-O’Connor arrives at this epiphany from a place of enormous privilege—there’s a lot more time to chill out and tune into what’s important when you don’t have to worry about money—but there’s enough uncertainty and self-awareness on the record to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Now the cherry-black lipstick’s gathering dust in a drawer,” she sings, alluding to the gothic look she adopted early on. “I don’t need her anymore.” We’ll see.

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