Eilish unlocks her best song yet on ‘Hit Me Hard’
Billie Eilish is in love.
Or maybe it’s just lust.
And by the closing song on her new album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” out now, Eilish is “Blue,” calling back to the nine tracks that precede it and questioning all of the feelings she unloads with bracing, stomach-roiling candor.
The third studio release from the princess of dark pop – a ninetime Grammy winner and recently minted Oscars victor – comes three years after “Happier Than Ever” and a lifetime for Eilish, 22, as she continues to navigate young adulthood while embracing her recently disclosed sexuality.
All of the 10 tracks on this refreshingly economical album are written by Eilish and her brother/producer Finneas O’Connell. But it also is her first release to feature outside musicians: Andrew Marshall on drums and the Attacca Quartet on strings, whose work is laced throughout but featured prominently on “Skinny.”
Eilish still is the mistress of ethereal backdrops paired with breathy vocals, which she carried to tremendous commercial success with her “Barbie” soundtrack standout, the award-magnet heartbreaker “What Was I Made For?”
She and Finneas continue to mine her penchant for quirkiness (“La Amour De Ma Vie” – translation, “the love of my life” - which rolls along sadly before kicking into a dance floor rave) and dreamy introspection (“Wildflower” and “The Greatest,” on which her simple declaration “I loved you and I still do” shudders with piercing sadness).
Eilish sings about sex, friendship and love
Eilish notes in the release for “Hit Me” that she specifically didn’t release a single before the album drop because she wants this new music to be experienced as “a family of songs.”
She shared the intoxicating anthem “Lunch” at listening parties last week, an obvious hint it will be the first single.
But the throbbing tune might be a bit too ribald for radio with lyrics such as “I could eat that girl for lunch/she dances on my tongue/tastes like she might be the one.”
Eilish teases over a propulsive beat as unrelenting as her hormones and slays with a lyric tailored for a T-shirt at the merch stands at her fall tour: “It’s a craving, not a crush.”
But before she gets there, the first words we hear from her on opening track “Skinny” are “fell in love for the first time/with a friend it’s a good sign.” Eilish’s salvo lays the groundwork for the album’s female-centric journey through friendship, love, sex and anguish and she traverses it all with lyrical grace.
‘Birds of a Feather’ is the best song on the new album
While moody pop is Eilish’s signature, her musical growth bursts through on “Birds of a Feather.” The glistening melody, the insinuating bass line that adheres to the soaring chorus, the flecks of soul in the DNA of the song all mesh to form a bop that feels like love.
While it’s a classic take on the “I’ll love you until I die” trope, Eilish’s hopeless devotion somehow makes death – “’Til I’m in the casket you carry” – sound sweet.
In the second verse, she is desperate to bestow a compliment (“I want you to see how you look to me”) as her upper range flutters. The layered vocals at song’s end are buoyant, but also so airy they might mask the most poignant verse: “I knew you in another life/You had that same look in your eyes/I love you, don’t act so surprised.”
It’s a testimony to adoration with a hint of the macabre − Eilish specialties bundled in a perfect package.