Lorde turns The O2 inside out on her Ultrasound tour

Cameras zoom in on every bit of her and blow these details up on the big screen: her eyes with furrowed brows on 'Buzzcut Season', her wet torso on 'GRWM', her pained expression as she lays on the floor during 'Supercut'. It's a perfect reflection of what 'Virgin' does.

On each album cycle, Lorde is reborn. She isn't even 30 yet, but has long been pegged as wise beyond her years, peaking early as a teenage protege on debut 'Pure Heroine' and doubling down on the universal acclaim with follow-up heartbroken party girl record 'Melodrama'. On the pandemic-fuelled 'Solar Power', she digitally detoxed and retreated from crowds too, opting for smaller theatre venues on its respective tour. When it came to 'Virgin', Lorde fell apart and put herself back together. In that one speech, she reels off the neighbourhoods across London where that occurred.

So Lorde winds up back in the city in the biggest room she's ever played here, and yet the album she's touring may be her most intimate. As she emerges from a trap door in the middle of the stage with 'Hammer', a blue light recreates the album artwork across her lower abdomen; when she frees herself, she's thrown back into her usual thrashing, though this time it feels somehow considered and intentional.

The whole show is strikingly choreographed, the set around her deliberately sparse and industrial by contrast. At times, she's singing into an enormous fan ('Buzzcut Season'), she paces on a treadmill for 'Supercut', there's little more than a giant speaker setup behind her and a lighting rig above her for most of the show, and the few dancers she brings along perform emotive, contemporary routines around her. When she curls into a fetal position at the end of the stage for 'Supercut', or is literally stripped to her underwear during 'Current Affairs', it feels more like a performance inspired by Marina Abramovic than any of Lorde's pop peers.