Both soft focus and strobe lit, Billie Eilish’s third album finds the former teen prodigy, now 22, possibly hedging her bets for what might be the first time. She has built a mainstream pop career as an outsider auteur; Lana Del Rey, but for green-haired feminist insomniacs. For her 2019 debut, When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go, Eilish unleashed a creepy circus of teenage nightmares, polemically – for some – clad in loose-fit hip-hop garb.
Round two, Happier Than Ever (2021), dived deep into old-timey heartbreak, male toxicity and body positivity, with Eilish channelling vintage starlet vibes with pointed irony. As the title suggests, Hit Me Hard and Soft is a combo platter, one that draws on signature elements of her previous works – the haunted earworms of the first album, the heady swoon of the second; it packs in epic crescendos and whispery restraint.
