Billie Eilish stays sensible with sophomore album Happier Than Ever

Billie Eilish appears to be in a superb place on her sophomore album. “I’m happier than ever,” she sings on the primary music. But there’s a tear working down her cheek on the duvet. And earlier than the gathering is completed, she returns to the phrase “I’m happier than ever” however qualifies it with “When I’m away from you.” So it’s sophisticated.
Few folks do sophisticated like Eilish and “Happier Than Ever” is a captivating take a look at a messy, well-known pop star’s life, as diaristic as Taylor Swift however extra self-critical and emotionally candid. It’s an excellent album, formidable and mature — a younger lady pulling the hearth alarm whereas all of us stare on the flames.
The 16-track album that clocks in at slightly below an hour kicks off with “Getting Older” and a 19-year-old prodigy’s chopping, clear-eyed remark that “Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now.”
Using that as a launching pad, Billie Eilish goes on to discover fame and it’s darkish sides. On “NDA,” she acknowledges a real-life stalker (“Had to save my money for security”) and on “OverHeated,” an encounter with paparazzi results in an examination of surgical procedure and “plastic” our bodies.
WATCH: Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever”

Eilish additionally reaches as much as expose unequal energy constructions, usually returning to the theme of innocence polluted. On the hypnotic “GOLDWING” — which begins as a hymn primarily based on a Hindu verse — she warns a novice: “You’re sacred and they’re starved/And their art is gettin’ dark/And there you are to tear apart.”
Those similar evil forces are at play on the album’s triumph — the acoustic guitar-driven “Your Power,” pleading with a mentor abusing his energy over somebody in his thrall. “Will you only feel bad if it turns out/That they kill your contract?” she taunts.
So a lot for dwelling fortunately ever after. Seven Grammy Awards haven’t modified her or her co-writer and producer, Finneas. If 2019’s “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” was sarcastic, quirky, inside and angsty, “Happier Than Ever” is fuller and grander, the songs stronger of their building, crisper.
The brother and sister have a capability to take a spare noodle of a sound and construct a sturdy music round it, with Eilish wrapping her expressive and whispery-lush vocals.
Her spoken phrase “Not My Responsibility” is necessary and highly effective. “Would you like me to be quiet?” she asks and the reply is at all times no, no, no. She even targets mortality itself in “Everybody Dies.”

The new album isn’t all critical. There are terrific kiss-off songs (“I Didn’t Change My Number,” “Therefore I Am,” “Lost Cause” and the slow-building “Happier Than Ever”) and one the place she’s hopelessly in love (“Haley’s Comet”). Eilish and Finneas even play with bossa nova in a single terrific slinky tune.
But Billie Eilish is greatest within the shadows, exploring our messiest impulses. “Oxytocin” begins off as horny come-on, applicable for a music named after a hormone that controls copy. But it brilliantly shifts midway by, turning lust into one thing darker: ”’Cause so long as you’re nonetheless respiration/Don’t you even consider leaving.” Hey, its sophisticated.