It’s one of the crucial extremely anticipated album releases of the 12 months, which places an terrible lot of strain on a girl who’s confronted greater than sufficient criticism and scrutiny over the previous two years.
However there was no cause to doubt Billie Eilish, because it seems, as a result of removed from being the sufferer of the dreaded “second album syndrome”, Happier Than Ever has turned out to be a triumph that’s neither higher nor worse than her debut When We All Fall Asleep, The place Do We Go?, however merely a courageous new course.
With opening monitor Getting Older, already we’re listening to a extra refined, however less complicated, sound. The nuances of Billie’s emotive voice are clearer than ever, nearly like she’s crooning straight into our ears. However greater than that, it displays a painfully trustworthy artist, reflecting on her youth in a method that too many people are nowhere close to courageous sufficient to strive.
That vulnerability continues with songs like Halley’s Comet, a easy piano quantity with balladic guitar licks and a distorted, retro piece on the finish; Your Energy, a sombre acoustic tune confessing the extent of how she’s been taken benefit of in her youth; and Male Fantasy, a rustic flavoured lament about love that lingers even when it’s clearly pretend.
However as naked as she lays herself in these moments, she exhibits a extra empowered, assured aspect on I Didn’t Change My Quantity; a percussive monitor which sees her voice at its most sensual, mixing lounge singer vibes with jarring electro. It exhibits that whereas Happier Than Ever is a departure from When We All Fall Asleep…, it’s nonetheless very a lot a Billie Eilish x Finneas creation.
Misplaced Trigger is a bass-y mushy rock quantity that exhibits extra confidence and inside power, however for a monitor that’s so fashionable, it’s unusually one of many extra bland numbers on the album.
There’s loads of optimism right here; My Future is a love music to herself – there’s such a purity to Billie’s voice right here, and this was our first style of the downtempo jazz-pop that we bought for Happier Than Ever.
However whereas her positivity is evident, she isn’t afraid to complain concerning the trials and tribulations of fame. OverHeated has a sort of eerie monotony as she displays on that surreal second when the paparazzi snapped her in tank prime, whereas NDA is an angsty quantity that treads rock territory with anthemic membership parts. It’s a bit bit in all places however what it does do is segue superbly into the subsequent monitor, Subsequently I Am, which is definitely probably the most infectious monitor on the album.
It might shock many who nonetheless see Billie because the pure 15-year-old behind Ocean Eyes, however she’s unafraid to speak about her sexuality as a 19-year-old girl who was unafraid to don corsets and stockings for the entrance cowl of Vogue.
Billie Bossa Nova has a well-known tone that harkens again to songs like ilomilo and my unusual habit, however with attractive lyrics a few resort room affair, and issues get much more sizzling and heavy on Oxytocin. It’s an ethereal electro-pop quantity with evocative vocal echoes that make us yearn for the dance ground and is the surprising album spotlight.
The maturity in contrast with When We All Fall Asleep… is stark once you take a look at tracks equivalent to GOLDWING. It opens with Enya-esque harmonised folks as Billie sings an English translation of a Hindu hymn, earlier than stuttering into scattered rhythm the place she speaks from expertise in warning the unspoilt “angels” of the world to watch out for those that need to tear them aside.
Whereas we first hear the phrases “happier than ever” on monitor one, Happier Than Ever as a music summarises the album splendidly in each sound (an nearly blue-eyed soul quantity reworking into scuzzy pop-punk melody is the sort of juxtaposition that Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas are consultants at) and lyrics (it being a break-up lament that expresses the vulnerability of shedding a relationship whereas acknowledging the power of leaving an individual who compromises one’s personal happiness).
It’s been a course of, however Billie Eilish appears lastly to have come into herself, discovering a solution to be trustworthy with out sharing an excessive amount of of her life, and shrugging off the angsty, naive teenage persona of her earlier work.
There’s a sure uncooked honesty right here – unmarred by nuance and metaphor – with a expertise that may be in contrast with the likes of Radiohead, Amy Winehouse and Lana Del Rey. There was each cause to fret that Happier Than Ever wouldn’t dwell as much as the lofty heights of When We All Fall Asleep…, however elevated fame and funds has not, it appears, spoiled the character of her new music.
