Her most structurally sharpest album to date, Billie Eilish utilizes it to emphasize the tones of her writing and sound even further. ‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ may not be Billie’s strongest record as the well-made albeit dull sound can lose its weight, but the concise album focus paired with writing and performances still allows the emotive hits to pulse through.
At some point, Billie Eilish’s desire to rip as many fractured cracks within the presence of her success just gets amplified more and more with each year, where even with all the awards, money, and power that she has gained within the industry, there is also a part of it where the continuous reactionary backlash towards her private life, her identity, and parts of the success that she wished she didn’t earn just spiraled to the point where she just actively tries to find respite within that exhausting nightmare. Now that parts of her internal pain have been extinguished as she spent that respite having extensive writer’s block, one that she managed to purge after writing ‘What Was I Made For?’ for Barbie, it does feel like there is still some lingering feelings towards what she has to say about the conflicting feelings of her identity given the fact that some loud audiences still speak ill towards her. And she may have a few more things to say, as after deciding not to release a single before the album was out amidst showing some snippets of some of her songs in certain interviews that peek on some dance-pop sonics, her third record, ‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ was then eventually released, showing Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell plunging deep into album mode once more.
Right from the jump, there is a different feel and tact that the album goes into, emphasizing clarity and softness in both sound and structure. Going on a succinct 10-track throughline that runs as long as Billie’s debut, it exceedingly cuts down any kind of bloat to allow the tracks to sink deeper with purposeful impact, which eventually leads to the biggest shift on the record: its sound. Embracing more soft atmospheric touches from Billie’s impressively full vocals, hazy drum machines, gleaming synths, and robust grooves to carry its indie pop and lounge pop influences weave quality within the album. The tasteful strings and harmonic swells on ‘SKINNY’, the piano cascades amidst the sharper grooves on ‘LUNCH’, the slow-burn mood shifters of ‘WILDFLOWER’ and ‘THE GREATEST’ where Billie’s belting just comes across as emotive across the spare instrumental swells on the former and the trilling guitar melodies that cracks up into electric bombast after Billie just bolts her vocals out on the latter, ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’ that starts off with its quaint presentation from the instrumentation just before it transitions to an outright transient dance beat and effects, and the punchy groove on ‘BLUE’ settles into nothing but Billie’s lilting melodies before the tasteful drums and strings close that track and the entire album.
That does provide some contrast with the writing, one that’s never felt so plainspoken in its poetry as Billie Eilish dwells within it to explore an arc of queer love, one that she has to embrace especially now that she has to come out of her shell - a forced one, given all the “queerbaiting” descriptor on her past songs that made her feel hurt as a now open bisexual musician - and find a freeing exhale within that romance where she can, for once, feel open with her sensuality and intimacy towards the girl in this arc that eventually ended up having to break up at the end of it. It might be a simple one on the surface, yet there are layers within it as Billie reflects on the fame that has eaten up a part of her and the relationship where she had to spend more time touring amidst the dramatic touches of becoming the stalker and feeling ever so blue post-breakup. And as much as she tries to act like her age, given the success that she waded through and all the pressure she has to carry, it leads to her failing to do so, still acting way beyond her years after everything she has experienced for a couple of years now.
That being said, while the sound and writing do pair well together as the soft tones and hard edges manifest within those aspects, there is a part in the sound that feels like it’s pulling things back, not allowing so much of the melodies to delve deeper as there are cuts like ‘BITTERSUITE’ that introduces a different brand of melodic tone but lets things dwindle from there. Perhaps it doesn’t help that despite Billie Eilish working well within this brand of soft, languid sound, it also carries a textural staleness from the saturated indie pop and lounge pop crossing over into the mainstream that may be well-produced and well-composed, albeit comes off fizzling out when there’s not much intriguing sonic flair to be considered. All of which can be a disservice to how it still overall works on a conceptual level, but in execution, it just falls flat when there are a lot of queer musicians taking this kind of sound - and at spots, the plainspoken poetry - into interesting twists and turns that gives it more spark as a result.
For an album that gives off hits in varying degrees, ‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ simultaneously has its punches pushed on and pulled back as the writing’s plainspoken tapestry allows Billie to express her queerness fully yet the sound’s overall lack of distinctive quality just let the performances, compositions, and production to float on the surface rather than sink deeper into glimmering territory. Despite all that, however, the needle-sharp focus does allow the impact to have its power as Billie and Finneas still create some shine within all of the music that they create. The tone might overall make a balance on both sides of the same coin, yet sometimes, going all in on both directions can lead to more deeply fascinating impressions.
Favorite Tracks: ‘SKINNY’, ‘LUNCH’, ‘WILDFLOWER’, ‘L’AMOUR DE LA VIE’, ‘THE GREATEST’, ‘BLUE’
Least Favorite Track: ‘CHIHIRO’