There’s a particular kind of artist who knows how to set the world on fire without even raising their voice. With “Hammer,” the opening track of her upcoming album Virgin, Lorde doesn’t just strike — she detonates.
From the first verse, we’re already flushed. “There’s a heat in the pavement, my mercury’s raising / Don’t know if it’s love or if it’s ovulation,” she sings — a line that struts with feral confidence, humor, and disarming candor. Lorde is no longer whispering about the party being over; she’s cracking the concrete with stilettos and turning every sidewalk into a simmering confessional.
“Hammer” is sensual without being syrupy, chaotic without losing precision. It leans into a kind of hot-and-bothered spirituality that feels both ancient and undeniably current. The production is tactile — you can feel the mist she references and practically smell the body heat rising from the chorus. Lorde has always been attuned to the spaces between emotion and intellect, but here, she taps something more instinctive, more blood-and-sweat.
The video — directed by Renell Medrano and filmed in Hampstead Heath — only deepens the myth. It’s as if we’re watching a pagan ritual unfold in a postmodern dream: Lorde gets a butt tattoo in the woods (yes, really), makes out in a car, and slips between softness and ferocity with every frame. It’s art-house erotic, mischievous, and knowingly absurd. Think The Virgin Suicides meets Spring Breakers, but scored by Fiona Apple on molly.
If Solar Power was her rewilding, “Hammer” is Lorde in heat. This isn’t healing — it’s hunger. It’s not a return to the Melodrama era either, but a rebirth that’s less about drama and more about desire, in all its messy, sweaty, awkward glory.
With Virgin set to drop on June 27, “Hammer” sets the tone for what promises to be Lorde’s most exposed, complex, and unflinchingly personal record to date. Her own words about the album ring louder now: “I was trying to see myself, all the way through.” On “Hammer,” she doesn’t just look — she bares her teeth.