Billie Eilish begins and ends Hit with hard and soft, her endlessly impressive third studio album, as a caged bird. The haunting images reframe her idiosyncratic introspection in the context of a youth inextricably linked to—and at times almost entirely consumed by—her massive fame. Five years removed from the seismic success of her Grammy-sweeping debut studio album, Eilish returns home in this concise 10-song set, while also further exploring the shape-shifting song structures she explored in 2021. Happier than ever.
In a recent Rolling rock profile, Eilish remarked, “I feel like this album is me… it feels like the When we all fall asleep, where do we go? my version. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.” And she's right: Her debut LP Adolescence – which often shied away from the more restrained, plaintive Happier — returns in the form of throbbing synths and soaring vocals, but with a melancholic maturity gleaned from spending crucial years in the scorching heat of the limelight. Those years were also dogged by stalkers and body image woes, while she explored her sexuality and learned to balance self-preservation with selflessness in romantic relationships – all of which she unpacks on her new record.
With the brother Phineas again with her at the wheel, Hit with hard and soft emerges with “Skinny,” a guitar ballad that returns to his comfortable sounds Happier than ever to dispel the destructive false equivalence of delicacy and happiness. “Twenty-one took a life/ People say I look happy/ Just 'cause I got skinny/ But the old me's still me and maybe the real me/ And I think she's beautiful,” he cools with frustration, before the hunger pangs continue of society for meanness (“The internet is hungry for the meanest kind of joke/ And someone's got to feed it”). Here, Eilish's voice takes on a quietly choral quality, as if singing in an empty underwater cathedral. Her tasteful riffs on the back half preview the unexpected parts of her range she'll display later on the record, while the purposefulness of her phrasing recalls the determined frustration of 2023's Oscar-winning tearjerker “What Was I Made For?”
From there, Eilish launches into “Lunch,” an instant standout and clear radio single. Reminiscent of the winking whimsy of 2019's Billboard Hot 100 hit “Bad Guy,” “Lunch” is a glorious queer awakening. The hook is obviously tacky, but Eilish's biggest display of her handle on quirky pop-isms comes in the verse, “She said, 'I bought you something' rare/ And I left it under 'Claire'” — a playful rhyme that builds on her alias admission on 2021's 'Billie Bossa Nova'. 'Lunch' definitely brings Eilish back to the bass-driven feel of her debut, but she's older, wiser and freer – both in her mind and and from its external expectations.
“Chihiro” — named after the main character in Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning Spirited Away – continues the resurgence of her debut's aesthetic, with a symphony of synths slowly swelling into a shimmering haze. “Open the door, you can open the door,” she asks repeatedly, gesturing both to her own closet and to the walls erected by a lover for whom she is willing to sacrifice everything. In the song's chorus, Eilish uses a falsetto that, at its peak, doesn't sound manic at all, accentuating the frenzied reverberations of obsession, its primary theme Hit with hard and soft. Throughout the album, she offers an almost unparalleled understanding of how to manipulate her voice to better enhance the narrative of her lyrics. The raspy, conversational tone he chooses on “Birds of a Feather” transforms into a fascinating display of range and balance on “Wildflower” and “The Greatest.”
In “Wildflower,” Eilish asks the question: Is crossing the line to be with the person you're helping another person overcome? At 22, she finally understands what makes love so alluring – its inherent messiness and tension. Painting on its soft rock Fleetwood Mac, Billie embodies the ethereal yearning of the band's greatest classics, pairing her soulful vocals with some of the most poignant storytelling of her career: “But every time you touch me, I just wonder how it felt/ Valentine's Day, the hotel cries / I know you didn't mean to hurt me, so I kept it to myself,” she croons, effectively ditching the rhetoric for simplicity. The solid build of the song's instrumentation provides the perfect segue into “The Greatest,” which is arguably Eilish's strongest, most compelling vocal performance to date.
The complexities of love and obsession, and the ways in which the two concepts inform each other, are revealed on “The Greatest,” her voice capturing the devastating self-pity that comes with realizing a stark imbalance of love and affection in a relationship I'd everything to keep. It's a harrowing story through which Billie finally finds some semblance of peace in the song's cathartic, string-filled breakdown. Up close, Billie finally accepts that her commitment to the relationship means she deserves a partner who will match the depths of her love and patience. “I shouldn't have said it/ You could have been the best,” she sings. Billie doesn't philosophize anything new about romance and relationships, but you can hear the youthful naivety breaking through in her tone. Through her eyes, everything is brand new.
After this short detour Happier than ever-Esque pop-rock fusions, hinting at her first comeback. “L'Amour de Vie” combines an Édith Piaf-inspired groove with a post-disco synth-pop blast that finds Eilish taking shots at a no-good ex. “You wanna know what I told her/ With her hand on my shoulder?/ You were so mean/ And we're so glad it's over now,” he smugly quips. Here, Billie veers apathetically, juxtaposing the song's rosy title with a tale of an ex-partner who proved anything but the love of her life.
“The Diner” returns Billie to the macabre trenches of her Billboard 200 debut LP. It assumes the perspective of a stalker, giving us a 'Stan' for the 2020s. Possibly the album's darkest moment, 'The Diner' combines the carnival feel of horror with lyrics that explore the incredible obsession that drives people . “You're looking right at me/ I'm here around the clock/ I'm waiting on your block/ But please don't call the police,” chillingly depicting the unsettling experience of dealing with manic irritation mistaken for love. Are we talking about stans, Eilish's ex or Billie herself?
The two closing songs — “Bittersuite” and “Blue” — round out the record with a pair of shapeshifters that blend and innovate on the grounding sounds of her first two albums. The former is a musical triptych that combines bossa nova influences with extreme synths, further exploring the conflicting feelings of self-preservation and self-sacrifice. Hotels are an important symbol throughout Eilish's lyrical work, partly because of the demands of her tour, but mostly because they are the perfect environment to deal with emotional and physical transience. Between “do not disturb” signs and a distinct lack of homey warmth, hotels reinforce how cold secret meetings can feel. “I'll see you in the suite/ We can be discreet,” he whispers before suggesting, “L'amour de ma vie/ Love so bittersweet/ Open the door for me/ Cause I'm still on my knees. ”
“Blue” closes the album in the vein of 2019's “Goodbye” and 2021's “NDA.” Eilish references the titles and lyrics of the other tracks on the album — except for “The Diner” because that's not from her perspective… right? — and relies on synth-rock to internalize the fact that she can make sense of her ex-lover's troubled past without holding herself responsible for “saving” or “fixing” them. It's heady for sure, but it brings the whole affair back to light with the cheeky question, “But when can I hear the next one?”
Whether that's a tease of a rumored follow-up album or a reference to how quickly we're collectively moving on new artwork, Hit with hard and soft is the sharpest volume of Eilish's three-album Bildungsroman. With each of her studio albums, Eilish has soundtracked the breakneck speed of the arcs of maturity and life experience experienced between the ages of 18 and 21. Is her question at the end of her last as incredible as it is progressive? Now that she has completed the odyssey of adolescence, where does the openness of the remaining 20 years lead her?
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/billie-eilish-hit-me-hard-and-soft-album-review-1235688324/
