Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft: REVIEW

Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (Darkroom/Interscope)

After a subdued left turn with her 2021 sophomore effort Happier Than Ever, Billie Eilish has returned with possibly the richest-sounding, most concise body of work she’s made to date. With older brother Finneas at the top of his production game, Hit Me Hard and Soft is an album that finds one of the world’s biggest pop stars achieving a sonic middle ground between her first two albums with an emphasis on strong emotional heft and more mature songwriting than we’d seen from her previously. Third and fourth tracks “Chihiro” and “Birds of a Feather” immediately sound like singles (the latter’s chorus is an absolute knockout), while acoustic ballads “Wildflower” and “The Greatest” are the album’s emotionally charged centrepieces. Hit Me Hard and Soft is a glorious window into Billie Eilish’s journey toward artistic growth, and it’s truly exciting to think of where she goes from here. 9/10 Trial Track: “Birds of a Feather”

For more on Billie Eilish, please visit her website. This article was originally published in the June 2024 issue of Cult MTL.

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