Taylor Swift, “Tortured Poets Department.”

It didn’t take long for Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department to completely take over the internet. Did it really leak or was that an AI trick? Do real fans listen early? Are these songs about Matty Healy?

The Tortured Poets Department is less a concept record and more an album with an aesthetic, Swift again setting the tone through imagery and storytelling. Musically, it feels like a natural evolution from Midnights as well as callbacks to some of Swift’s past eras. Take “But Daddy I Love Him,” an acoustic track that’s closer to Red, when Swift dabbled between the worlds of country and pop.

“I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in emperor’s clothing,” Swift sings.

Producer Jack Antonoff and Swift remain a dynamic duo, as evidenced by the darkly moody pop bounce of opening track “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone.

“I touched you for only a fortnight,” Swift sings as Post Malone adds a softly sung chorus harmony, in more of a cameo role.

Swift’s short-lived relationship with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy is definitely a defining presence throughout the album. Swift has always had a very conversational lyrical style, and that’s only doubled down on The Tortured Poets Department, at one point even name-checking her producer and at another declaring that singer Charlie Puth should be more famous.

“You’re in self-sabotage mode/ Throwing spikes down on the road/ But I’ve seen this episode and still love the show,” she sings on the title track.

The upbeat “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” really strikes at Swift’s strength. From the anthemic chorus to the tight harmonies and lyrical delivery to the moody-yet-upbeat rhythms, the track delivers the goods and will surely become a fan favorite.

Songs like “Down Bad” and “So Long, London” keep up Swift’s making sense of a relationship going sour in song. It’s nice to again hear her voice cutting through the mix, shedding some of the distorted reverb that marked much of the Midnights material.

Swift sharpens her knife of snark on “Florida!!!,” a duet with Florence Welch, the two trading lyrics back and forth over a stunningly dramatic instrumental.

“Little did you know your home’s really only the town you’ll get arrested/ So pack your life away just to wait out the shitstorm back in Texas,” Swift sings.

Every now and then you can hear shades of Swift’s country roots, like on mid-tempo acoustic ballad “Guilty as Sin?”

Musically, The Tortured Poets Department doesn’t offer a ton of surprises, but the album’s lyrics are going to be where Swift fans really dig in to this record, debating references and putting each track under a microscope and looking for clues. And, has she ever dropped as many F-bombs as she does on “Down Bad?”

The dramatic “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” has a cinematic rise and fall, with Swift’s chorus vocal delivery standing out.

“Who’s afraid of little old me?” she asks. “Well, you should be.”

The pace begins to slow between “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” into the keyboard-laden balladry of the bares-bones “loml” before picking back up on “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” an upbeat and bouncy pop song about depression and struggle. The album is intricately constructed and well arranged, but it’s nice to hear the beats-per-minute jump once in a while.

Swift delivers one of the most punishing lyrical salvos of her career on “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” an absolutely blistering track taking on what would seem to be her rock star antagonist.

“I would’ve died for your sins/ Instead I just died inside/ And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time,” she sings.

The album closes on a subdued note with “The Alchemy” and “Clara Bow.” It will require multiple listens and most certainly won’t be defined by radio-ready singalongs (though you can be sure these will be all over the radio tomorrow).

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.