Lorde Says She's Trying to 'Move as Quickly' as She Can on Fourth Album: 'Super Exciting'

Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Lorde

Lorde fans, prepare yourselves — new music may be coming sooner than you think.

The "Green Light" singer, 26, revealed that she's been hard at work on her fourth album — and that despite the lukewarm critical response to her last record Solar Power, she's relieved to not feel "pigeonholed" a decade into her career.

Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O'Connor) opened up about her creative process in an interview with the New Zealand outlet Ensemble, and explained why it's taken her "quite a while" to begin work on her next project.

"I do a lot of research, I write a lot down. Sort of a big chunk of work before I actually start writing music," she said. "It's been super exciting and I feel excited about what's coming."

Though the star said it's "always my intention to move as quickly as I f---ing can," she acknowledged that the rush takes "different forms."

"This one, I really am trying to. I don't want to wait, you know, so take from that what you will," she said.

Upcoming new music will follow 2021's Solar Power, which saw the Grammy winner embrace a folkier, more laid-back sound than its synth-heavy, heartbreak-focused predecessor Melodrama, which was released in 2017.

RELATED VIDEO: This Week's PEOPLE Picks: Lorde Shines Bright on Her Third Studio Album Solar Power

Though Solar Power fared well, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, it didn't quite reach the peaks scaled by Melodrama, which topped the charts and was nominated for album of the year at the Grammy Awards.

Critics were also torn on the record; Entertainment Weekly gave it a B, saying it had a "subdued quality," while the British online magazine The Line of Best Fit took it further, calling Solar Power "somewhat of a swing and a miss."

RELATED: Lorde Says Response to 'Solar Power' Was 'Really Confounding' and 'Painful': 'I Learnt a Ton'

In her interview with Ensemble, Lorde addressed the criticism, but stood by the music, saying it enabled her to work through some difficult times in her life.

"Obviously, some people liked it, some people didn't like it. I think the third album is like always a real… you do sort of cross over in a way, you know, you're not new anymore, and also you want maybe different things," she said. "I had real things I wanted that I just had to do with that album, and I feel more clear and calm for having done that."

Jim Dyson/Getty Lorde

In a newsletter sent to fans in June, Lorde credited the album with helping her "work through some big personal stuff," and said that since the release, she'd experienced "the highest highs and the lowest lows" of her life.

Still, as she explained to Ensemble, it was something of a relief following the overwhelmingly massive response to Melodrama.

"At the end of the Melodrama cycle I felt everything too… I don't know, it felt too big. It felt like people believed in me too much or something. I was like, I'm 20 or 21, this is my hobby," she said. "You know, I felt really spooked by it. And so to sort of go down this weird road and for people to have absolutely no idea what's going to come next, that is super cool to me. I'm stoked that I don't feel pigeonholed at this stage."

Lorde — who rose to fame at just 16 with the release of her debut album Pure Heroine — has spent the last year touring Solar Power, a trek she called "rewarding," especially after seeking out therapy to help her conquer her debilitating stage fright.