Something snapped in the climax of “Happier Than Ever,” the title track of Billie Eilish’s 2021 sophomore album. Amidst songs about the trappings of fame, oversized expectations and projections, and loving herself, she sang about heartbreak, too. And on the overblown outro, Billie Eilish — as her hero Lana Del Rey would say — was fresh out of fucks to give, effectively shutting the door on her ex and finding a seismic way to close out the then-newest iteration of Billie Eilish, eclectic pop connoisseur.
The thing about heartbreak, though, is that you can pull yourself out of the darkest pits, find love again, lose it again, and be transported right back in the depths of despair once more, all in the span of three or four years. This is the emotional backdrop of Hit Me Hard and Soft, Billie Eilish’s excellent third album. If the heartbreak felt bad on Happier Than Ever, it’s crushing on Hit Me Hard and Soft.
Get Billie Eilish Tickets Here
Released with no preceding singles and relatively limited promotion for a pop star the size of Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft is not a surprise left turn but the consolidation of sonic ideas broached in Happier Than Ever. Eilish’s breakthrough sound from five years ago consisted of icy hip-hop-inspired beats that she cooed over in a mostly breathy, ASMR-style delivery. All of that is not getting hard to remember, and in retrospect seems remarkable.
Now, she still possesses command of her softer register, but Hit Me Hard and Soft demonstrates more sides of Billie Eilish’s voice than ever before. There are approximately three hip-hop-inspired beats from Finneas, and the rest run the gamut from soft rock to deep house, lush R&B to jazzy indie rock. “Happier Than Ever” was just a tease; Eilish is skyscraping more than once on Hit Me Hard and Soft, evoking everyone from Hayley Williams to Solange.
The album follows a loose narrative structure. “Skinny” picks up where Happier Than Ever left off, and sets the scene for Hit Me Hard’s journey: “I fell in love for the first time,” she tenderly relays over the softest electric guitar imaginable. In just the first song, Eilish’s guard is already down — “People say I look happy/ Just because I got skinny,” goes one line, later re-treading ground from Happier Than Ever with, “When I step off the stage I’m a bird in a cage/ I’m a dog in a dog pound” and lamenting social media’s hunger for “the meanest kind of funny.” But then, she hits a soaring, crystal clear high note, followed by the most R&B-Billie Eilish run imaginable, closing out the song with a weeping string section.
It’s all spellbindingly intimate, and then comes “Lunch” — the onset of Eilish’s love affair, guided almost solely by lust (“It’s a craving, not a crush,” she sings). “Lunch,” with its driving tempo, reedy guitars, and horny urgency, stands as Billie Eilish’s post-punk banger. The introduction of Finneas’ swallowing bass in the end is so jarring that it leaps out of the speakers. She continues narrating the nervy early phases of a relationship on the downright gorgeous “Chihiro,” which feels like a spiritual sequel to Happier Than Ever’s “NDA.” Besides the very sapphic “Lunch,” “Chihiro” is one of the only times Eilish subtly references the societal divide of a queer romance, and the murky lines crossed as a relationship turns “serious.” But on these heartbroken love songs, the gender is irrelevant.