The last time we heard from Lorde, she was in a quieter, more contemplative space. After turning heartbreak into euphoria on her second album Melodrama, the New Zealand artist took a stark left turn on 2021’s Solar Power, trading midnight drama for sunlit introspection.

That third record found her stepping back from the intensity of fame she experienced in her teens, instead embracing nature, healing, and the slower process of growing up. It was a gentle, stripped-down project that, while beautiful in its own right, diverged sharply from the synth-driven pop that had defined her earlier career.

Then, in 2023, Lorde began to hint at a shift. At Boardmasters Festival, she debuted two new tracks—‘Silver Moon’ and ‘Invisible Ink’—that signaled a potential return to her nocturnal roots. While neither track has seen an official release yet, they felt like a sonic reset: more rhythmic, more emotionally immediate, and suggestive of a new creative chapter.

Now, that evolution becomes clearer with the release of ‘What Was That’, her first official single from this new era. It marks a full re-entry into the world of pulsing beats and emotional catharsis. But unlike Melodrama, where the dancefloor was a means of escape, Lorde now seems to be dancing alongside her ghosts rather than trying to outrun them. “Do you know you’re still with me / When I’m out with my friends?” she sings, haunted but accepting.

Her lyrics capture memories of chemical highs and intense intimacy—nights on MDMA, marathon kisses—but they’re laced with an ache that’s more reflective than raw.

The track opens with her struggling through the aftermath of heartbreak, covering mirrors she can’t bear to look into, making meals she has no appetite for. There’s regret, too, delivered in quiet moments: “I didn’t know then that you’d never be enough for…” she trails off, the words dissolving into silence. With ‘What Was That’, Lorde isn’t just returning to a sound—she’s revisiting a feeling, this time older, wiser, and less afraid to sit with the pain.