Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

So we're now at the point where stars are emerging who were born after 9/11. Which is fine and inevitable, obviously, but... oh boy when I found out about Billie Eilish I couldn't help but take a figurative hat off and mourn my own youth. At the age of seventeen I got drunk in a cemetery on New Years' Eve and tried to choose the ugliest-possible outfits with my friends in TK Maxx; Eilish has already released a self-penned album and topped the charts.

I'm tentative to review this since, as this blog has occasionally documented, I've been ridiculously snooty in my review of debuts from artists who've since gone to grow on me wildly. The temptation is always there for (white male) critics to punch downwards to any glimpses of promising young talent, but where Pure Heroine really struggled to string together many melodies or moving songwriting, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP... does not.

A short intro and removal of Eilish's invisalign paves way for the latest in Eilish's string of hits: 'Bad Guy' deploys a punchy rhythm and eerie melody that boasts about being the "might seduce your dad type". She treads the line between innocent and sinister playfully, recalling: "My mommy likes to sing along with me, but she won't sing this song/ If she reads all the lyrics she'll pity the men I know" and signing off every chorus with a "Duh!" The bass particularly drives the track along and amplifies it into something interminable.  There's then a jewelry-box poignancy about 'Xanny', a sombre and sober resolve to never become as dependent on anti-depressants as those she often sees. The last verse, in particular, is one of many moments where Eilish is achingly honest and lost ("they just keep doing nothing/ too intoxicated to be scared").

As if already anticipating an underestimating audience, she swiftly changes tone and goes dark on 'you should see me in a crown', a Moriarty-referencing vow to "run this nothing-town". Screeching synths and those darker tones continue on 'all the good girls go to hell' - where she points out she's so bad she doesn't even have a cartoon angel on the opposite shoulder to her Lucifer. Those aforementioned powers manifest in the story behind single 'wish you were gay', wherein a boy she once fancied has indeed come out and that, naturally, is the only reason he wasn't interested in Eilish. If this reads as sarcastic, then I need only remind everyone of the sorts of promises and weird ego-trips we all made enjoyed around that age. It's certainly not a track that requires too much overwrought and hysterical analysis by idiots.

Two tracks here were written in entirety by her musician/actor brother Finneas O'Connell; the first is the relentlessly breathy 'when the party's over', a morose and heartbroken hatred of being alone, while the other - 'my strange addiction' - interpolates quotes from The Office over a frustratingly monotonous beat. Her own signature is the most compelling though: 'Bury a Friend' is far and away the album's stand-out and a masterpiece of production that sits somewhere near Kanye West's Black Skinhead. It's understandable, really, that the track literally hands her the album title with its lyrics - its alienating and frightening energy is perfect for leaving a lingering influence. It segues finely into 'ilomilo', a drawn-out metaphor of an app game symbolising her chase of romance and fears of isolation. Eilish's voice strays furthest from her niche here, almost emulating the crooning and mournful balladry of, say, Lana del Rey. Literal stormclouds gather in the background of 'listen before i go', a suicidal fantasy and request to just be heard and understood:

Take me to the rooftop
I wanna see the world when I stop breathing
Turnin' blue
Tell me love is endless, don't be so pretentious
Leave me like you do (Like you do)

There's then a classic beauty about closers 'I Love You' and 'Goodbye' that might ring as simplistic but tick all the boxes and prove considerable examples of the aching delicacy of Eilish's voice. 

Any insignificant complaints I had about the styling of this whole album cycle (which is more of a complaint of everyone, rather than just Eilish) with the whole ALL-CAPS and then suddenly no-caps-at-all theme, the LOL RANDOM XD usernames on Instagram and Twitter, the unmissable indifference in her facial expressions and vocal strain... were all washed down the drain by the time track five had come in. This is a startlingly well-constructed album - especially when considering it is essentially the work of just one brother (who's worked with... Rebecca Black!) and one sister. Eilish has carved out something that it's incredibly difficult to do in 2019: a unique identity and one of the most atypical records of recent years. If she can hone this into stronger songwriting, then she could be unstoppable.

Rating: 8.5/10
Highlights: Bury a Friend, ilomilo, Bad Guy, Xanny, Listen Before I Go
Avoid: My Strange Addiction

Artwork Watch: Good luck actually falling asleep in the first place after looking at this monstrosity.
For fans of: Voices that are committed to one range and one range only; overwhelming moodiness; glazed eyes

Coming next: Kehlani