Earlier this year, multi-platinum songstress, Lorde, shared her stunning third studio album “Solar Power.” She surprised her fans recently by releasing two bonus tracks “Helen of Troy” and “Hold No Grudge.”
“Helen of Troy” is a simple track showcasing only Lorde’s flawless vocals over a basic, yet enticing melody. In contrast, “Hold No Grudge” has a bassline that pounds deep into your chest as you listen to it. Whilst her voice has a gentle approach, the instrumentation builds and experiments throughout. They are both equally exceptional and undoubtedly fits with the singers unique style. She explains;
“These songs were fun explorations on the album journey. They didn’t quite fit into the tracklist for whatever reason but they’re both big tunes.”
Whilst she may have felt that the tracks didn’t belong on the album, fans were still thrilled to hear even more music that they missed out on the first time round. It may not have belonged on the record for “whatever reason,” but it belonged to be out in the world nonetheless.
The most interesting part of listening to a new song is wondering how the lyrics came together, and the creative process that artist went through when putting together such fantastic music. When talking about the writing process for “Helen of Troy,” she comments;
We wrote it super quickly in the tiniest room at Westlake where we did a bunch of Melo and it was fun the whole time. It’s super off the cuff lyrically, almost ad-libbed, and you can hear me starting to figure out some album themes…”
About “Hold No Grudge” she adds;
“HNG is a sort of composite portrait of when relationships turn sour, being trapped in the ice but remembering the warmth.”
As she is the singer that just keeps on giving, a music video for her song “Fallen Fruit” has also been dropped recently. It’s a rather moody and atmospheric watch, but fits with the tone of the single wonderfully;
The visual has an interesting insight to it as Lorde gives fans a deeper look into the universe of “Solar Power.” She depicts the serious issue of human destruction and the Global climate crisis. The video demonstrates this issue with such power, it’s hard not to listen to the message behind it. She explains;
“In the Solar Power video, you were introduced to the island as a lush paradise — glistening water, blue skies, not a grain of sand out of place (barring that pesky beach trash…). Cut to: humans doing as they do, getting greedy, treating the land with disrespect and stripping it of its beauty. There’ll always be another pristine place to start again, right? The gardens that were once lush and fruitful are now on fire. The fishing boats are busted up and overturned. All that’s left of the peaches are their pits. Amid all that, my character makes a choice.”
Both bonus tracks are now available to stream on all major streaming platforms. You can find the relevant links below. If you haven’t already, you can follow Lorde on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for further news!
Listen to “Helen of Troy” HERE
Listen to “Hold No Grudge” HERE
Let us know what you thought of these extra songs over on our Twitter! – @AboutThe_Noise