Lorde - Virgin
“Am I ever gonna love again?”
With her signature four-year hiatus, Lorde returns with her fourth studio album, boldly titled Virgin. The cover art—an X-ray of her hip joint—sets the tone for what lies ahead: an invitation into something deeply internal. And indeed, Virgin is a full-bodied dive into identity, memory, and emotional chaos — a sonic diary, a fragmented recollection of a self in motion.
The lead-up to the record was enticingly unpredictable. The singles didn’t reveal much direction, which only heightened curiosity. What Virgin ultimately offers is a kind of rebirth: a revisiting of oneself across the spectrum of experiences—at one’s best, worst, and most unrecognizable. It’s Lorde’s most personal album to date, and her most introspective. She grapples with questions of who she is, how the world perceives her, and whether those two versions can ever align.
One of Lorde’s most impressive artistic traits has always been her refusal to stagnate, and Virgin continues that path — no two of her albums ever sound the same. It has a connection to the previous ones: some neon-tinged young adult drama of Melodrama, a bit of the cool minimalism from Pure Heroine, and the unbothered detachment of Solar Power. But if anything, Virgin might be best described as a post-apocalyptic Melodrama — a record made by someone who’s already burned through youth and is now looking around, unsure of what comes next.
Where Melodrama romanticized chaos, Virgin sits in it uncomfortably. This is an album made by someone who has already passed through youth and now looks around, still asking: “Who am I, really?” That self-doubt and quiet insecurity might be the most beautiful part of the record. There’s maturity here, but also disorientation. And that tension is what gives the album its weight.
But — and here’s the thing — within all that emotional turbulence and self-reflection, there’s a feeling that even the album itself isn’t fully sure what it is. I’ll be honest: lyrically it’s excellent. Production-wise it’s smart and interesting. On paper, I should be raving about this record. But for some reason, something doesn’t fully click.
Despite the many clever musical choices, the album feels a bit too even — not flat, but lacking standout highs. Some songs don’t get enough time to really unfold or pull you in emotionally. It's like fragments of feelings — the whole thing sometimes sounds like a panic attack layered over beats. Almost every track has something that catches your ear, and you could probably pull five great quotes from each song (because of course, it’s Lorde — we knew she’d deliver). But still, the spark doesn’t always hit as strongly as you'd expect.
Standouts like “Man of the Year,” “Shapeshifter,” “Current Affairs,” and the more personal closer “David” provide those moments of clarity, and everything else is still solid — this is a very good album, don’t get me wrong — but there’s this sense that with Lorde, you’re always expecting just a little bit more. Not because she failed here, but because we know exactly how high she can go.
What remains undeniable is that Virgin continues to prove that Lorde is one of the most versatile, fearless, and emotionally intelligent artists of her generation. But maybe this time, it’s a record meant not to dominate our generation, but to help us survive the older one. It’s not delivering that epic catharsis that you kinda expect, but it’s here with you—just loud enough so you know it’s here.
7.9/10
