HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

This is the least we knew about Billie Eilish heading into an album. For years, the star's journey was documented on an annual basis Vanity fair interviews and candid documentaries; even Carpool Karaoke visited Eilish's childhood home, where she lived until recently. This seeming lack of boundaries between pop star and her audience is increasingly typical of megastars, but Eilish's intimate music made her a particularly strong candidate for parasociality. Her 2021 album, Happier than everwas largely a response to public scrutiny, more restrained and mature than her 2019 debut; When we all fall asleep, where do we go? In the years that followed, Eilish kept a low profile, popping up every so often to score a Pixar movie or win an Oscar before retiring to work on her next record.

To hear Eilish tell it, the goal for HIT ME HARD AND SOFT was making an “album of albums”, citing Coldplay Viva La Vida and Vince Staples Big Fish Theory as influences. These records are also ambitious pop mini-epics where established artists show off their range, but there's usually an outsider like Brian Eno or SOPHIE to push the musician out of his comfort zone. With Finneas once again at the helm, HMHAS it's more of the same. For the first time, Eilish's live drummer Andrew Marshall is on board, as well as the Attacca Quartet, playing covers orchestrated by Finneas and prolific David Campbell. Never able to be pigeonholed into a single genre, Eilish flits from minimalist trance to massive progressive rock, and the album has the same dense vocal layering and inventive percussion that make Finneas one of the most excessively documented producers in pop. But there's no real deviation, just bigger versions of what they've already made—even Coldplay dabbled in shoegaze! The experimentation here shows the brothers' strengths and limitations as they enter their third project together, but it's a diminishing return.

Thematically, HMHAS it mainly focuses on falling in love with a narcissist (as documented in “Blue”) and falling in love with a woman for the first time. Opener “Skinny” teases another record about the perils of fame, according to him Happier than everand it's hard not to blame her: When Eilish casually confirmed her bisexuality in a larger Variety Profile, that's all the press wanted to talk about. When she refers to the album, it's on her own terms, like his years unconscious “queerbaiting” charges were never made. It's hard to stand out in the age of the Spotify-approved sapphic playlists, but “Lunch” is enjoyable for its sexiness and the record's best lines: “I bought you something rare/And left it under Claire.” Although the syncopated piano and guitar riffs are reminiscent of more general than 2010s alt-pop, Eilish maintains her irreverence with the double-edged and intolerant (“I just want to get her out,” she mutters). THE “Last ChristmasThe chord progression of “Birds of a Feather” is designed to soundtrack sad coming-of-age stories, and you'll definitely find it in the trailer for the sad Netflix show Heartstopper. Both of these songs are uniquely effervescent departures from her catalog, but they never sound like a pop star playing catchup on pop radio—just the earnest excitement of someone falling in love.