‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ – haunting vocals slick with ethereal production, crafted with direction

After three years of anticipation and a variety of publicly adored releases (think award-winning Barbie anthem ‘What Was I Made For?’ and viral ballad ‘TV’), Billie Eilish has released her third studio album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. Produced, as usual, by her talented older brother FINNEAS, this project does what it says on the tin: like the moody waters that Eilish succumbs to on the cover, we’re hit again and again by waves of hurt, boldness, lust, and angst. There’s no coming up for air when Eilish is determined to prove her non-conformist nature as a pop star – each song is intricately crafted with direction and purpose.

This is a project that demands darkness, smoke, and noise-cancelling headphones – Eilish promises to drown you with bliss, with purpose

With innovative beat drops and switches, Eilish has gifted us ten songs with multiple lives – so much to the point that we’re listening to 13 or 14 instead. Don’t be mistaken, this doesn’t come as a result of shock tactics or fan service either – each of the songs’ progressions feel natural and trusted. Among plenty, take the Studio Ghibli-inspired ‘CHIHIRO’ and Parisian-esque ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’ – the former starts as a catchy, soft melody with sharp beats that evolve from breathy vocals into an all-encompassing, transcendental odyssey of sounds. Translating to “the love of my life” in French, the latter also expertly descends from plucky guitars into party-fuelled, 80s-style club synths. These songs tell individual stories within their production – ascensions in desire; descensions into madness. This is a project that demands darkness, smoke, and noise-cancelling headphones – if you close your eyes, Eilish promises to drown you with bliss, with purpose.

Eilish and FINNEAS craft her music without the common inclination to be overly sweet with replayability or catchiness – in a post-TikTok world where attention spans are sparse and song lengths are tactically reduced, Eilish is unafraid to be a mainstream artist with five-minute tracks. And what a satisfying payoff this is. In perhaps her most radio-friendly tune ‘LUNCH’, Eilish laces sapphic desire with a smooth bass line, embracing her sexuality with tongue-in-cheek lyrics like: “Baby, I think you were made for me / Somebody write down the recipe” and “You need a seat? I’ll volunteer”. Then, we’re hit with paced heavy breaths that pan around our heads, sneaky claps, and a jazzy piano solo to keep the beat moving – unendingly satisfying.

 Eilish is unafraid to riddle her sorrows with daring production and gorgeous runs

That being said, it would be an injustice to ignore Eilish’s sentiment and melancholia with the album. The opener, ‘SKINNY’, is a beautiful confession about body image and mental health. With her classic breathy vocals, Eilish croons “People think I look happy / Just because I got skinny / But the old me is still me and maybe the real me / And I think she’s pretty” over FINNEAS’ gentle electric guitar. Then, the song lives another day to slip into simple and pretty violin strings, ending the first track on a tender, soft note. But her runs and background melodies are not just prevalent here – they’re scattered like stars across the entire album, a reminder that her voice is a powerhouse in itself. Another notably sad track is the ironic and scathing ‘THE GREATEST’ – “Man, am I the greatest / God, I hate it / All my love and patience / Unappreciated”. Here, Eilish’s vocals are at their peak – in another ‘Happier Than Ever’ moment, the track builds to a grand crescendo of emotional catharsis, powerful belts and drum/guitar explosions.

In ‘WILDFLOWER’, Eilish incorporates breathy vocals, pained cries and layered echoes that dance like fog over streetlights, all-encompassingly haunting. In a track about the death of a relationship and dating a friend’s ex, this is particularly fitting – Eilish’s raw honesty and self-reflection are ever-present, always lingering, never quite dying: “I see her in the back of mind all the time / Feels like a fever, like I’m burning alive, like a sign / Did I cross the line?”. These tracks are beautifully raw; Eilish is unafraid to riddle her sorrows with daring production and gorgeous runs. At the risk of sounding cliché, this album really does hit us both hard and soft – as promised.

Perhaps some of the most interesting sounds this album uncovers can be found within ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ and ‘THE DINER’. In the former, a personal favourite, Eilish experiments with a tone that is most unlike her usually acclaimed pop-darkness – instead, it’s sweet and groovy with this windows-down, summer jam vibe. It’s the kind of rolling-credits song you can listen to with the sunlight breaking through the trees as you prepare a picnic with your lover – but it isn’t entirely idyllic. As the drums roll in like syrup and Eilish’s vocals are further smoothened by FINNEAS’ echo effect, self-destructive and uncertain lyrics like “‘I’ll love you ‘til the day that I die / ‘Til the light leaves my eyes” and “I knew you in another life / You had that same look in your eyes” create a buoyantly sullen love song. But in ‘THE DINER’, Eilish aims directly for the aforementioned grunge darkness that made her pop sound so beloved – this track acts like the older, more mature cousin of ‘NDA’ from Happier Than Ever. Here, Eilish explores the disturbing side of fame by embodying a stalker, singing over gothic-style synths and whipping up a frightening cloud with FINNEAS’ bold beats – all without conforming to either her old sound or current pop conventions.

FINNEAS has a specific funk and groove that both allows Billie Eilish to be daring, confident and expressive with her vocal talent and storytelling

Eilish’s sound has certainly evolved without forsaking her originality. At the end of ‘BITTERSUITE’ and the album closer ‘BLUE’, Eilish brings back an old, unreleased tune ‘True Blue’ – much to the joy of her hardcore, day-one fans. Except, this time, it’s been reworked, proving once again that her creative direction has genuine effort involved. It’s not just fan service or shock value at play here – it’s dedication; evidence that speaks towards the years and hard work required to master a project that doesn’t quite fit immediately. Art that pays off. And while ‘BITTERSUITE’ lacks the same punch as other songs on the album – its final transition into ‘BLUE’ perhaps being its most memorable aspect – it still stands strong as the least interesting song on the album. Sure, it has Eilish’s classic, weird alt-sounds and beats that make her so unique, but it is in the closer ‘BLUE’ that cements the entire project as legendary. This track showcases some of Eilish’s most thoughtful lyrics as of yet – “You were born bluer than a butterfly / Beautiful and so deprived of oxygen / Colder than your father’s eyes / He never learned to sympathise with anyone” – sung softly over sirens and looming synths, akin to her debut album’s ‘listen before i go’. And like a butterfly, the song itself experiences its own chrysalis, transforming and unravelling itself into the previously scrapped ‘Born Blue’ – a track that never made it onto Eilish’s sophomore project. With it, the entire album closes the way it arrived: with peace, with violins, with anticipation – quite literally finishing with the spoken words “But when can I hear the next one?”,

Overall, it cannot be denied that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT would not be the stunningly captivating and innovative record it is without FINNEAS’ production. It’s the first thing that slaps us around the head – FINNEAS has a specific funk and groove that allows Billie Eilish to be daring, confident, and expressive with her vocal talent and storytelling. It would be a crime to praise this album and forget to mention FINNEAS’ hand in this project – as a duo, they are forces in the industry that easily pair exciting artistry and deep, meaningful siblingship. Eilish’s latest record is the perfect blend between her debut, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? and her sophomore, Happier Than Ever – it has the dark, experimental punch of the first and the raw, emotional honesty of the second. It sounds like Eilish has certainly found her unique, unparalleled place within the music scene – and it’s not by making catchy, pop hits (despite her industry rivals). It’s by making coherent, purposefully driven projects that can only grow into masterpieces; by making the sounds that, as siblings, Eilish and FINNEAS feel are genuinely right. Their creative direction, propelled onwards only by gut instinct, has proven to be incredibly successful – for the sake of surprising pop music, let’s hope they never stop.

Recommended listening: ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’, ‘CHIHIRO’, ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’

★★★★★