Album Review: Welcome to the Black Parade of Billie Eilish’s "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?"

They grow up so quick.

When then 14-year-old Billie Eilish was uncracked from whichever spider egg she’d been sleeping inside of three years ago, she emerged (clad in now-trademark tracksuit) with a fully formed sound: distorted, whispered vocals; droning, trap-influenced soundscapes; sinister, demon-child lyrics. As long as we’ve known her, she’s seemed to know herself. No wonder an immediate cult built up around her.

Eilish’s first few singles were funereal, almost chorus-free dirges. In each instance, her songs—often co-written and co-produced with her brother Finneas O’Connell—were hypnotic and entrancing and, yeah, a super bummer.

That changes (a little) with her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, which gives her some new textures, hinted at by the scene-setting single "bury a friend". That scene she’s setting? An insane asylum for clowns.

Just as April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation (sort of the ur-Eilish) said her favourite music was Halloween sound effects records from the 1950s, much of WWAFAWDWG sounds like the score to a condemned carnival. "bury a friend" in particular marries the industrial stomp of Kanye West’s "Black Skinhead" with My Chemical Romance’s baroque "Mama". Who could this possibly be for? Oh right: literally all the teens.

Now 17, Eilish boasts a massive fanbase. Her music has been streamed more than a billion times, and there are likely even more confounded parents of her fans than that number indicates. (The question "What’s a Billie Eilish?" will not be satisfactorily answered for mum and dad by hearing this album.) However, her generation is far from the first to fall for this kind of prodigious oddball. Pre-Star is Born Lady Gaga loved a bit of strange theatricality, and a 20-year-old Fiona Apple similarly sent adults to the fainting couches with her snake-charming single "Criminal" back in 1997. In fact, that very song seems to be the inspiration for opener "bad guy", in which a devious Eilish says, concerningly, she’s the "seduce your dad" type, before delivering the button: "duh".

Technically, the album really opens with audio of Billie removing her spit-riddled Invisalign and laughing derisively. That 12-second track is titled "!!!!!!!", with seven actual exclamation marks to sarcastically emphasise the effort she’s putting in for her first proper long-player. From that troll alone, you’d think she was treating WWAFAWDWG with as much seriousness as a fart. Except, the evidence here suggests she really is trying! And trying so much at once, too!

One of those new things she’s trying: to be funny. The track "wish you were gay" starts with a misguided joke (the punchline being it would be easier if her unrequited love simply admitted he wasn’t into girls), and it never quite recovers. Yet, it’s still her most irresistibly melodic moment (if you’re into that kind of thing, and if you’re listening to Billie Eilish, you very well may not be). A much better joke: sampling The Office episode "Threat Level Midnight" not once not twice not thrice but four times on the bouncy "my strange addiction".

Elsewhere—on at least five other tunes—she paints herself as something like a Disney villain, effectively doing her best renditions of "Be Prepared" from The Lion King. Each effort is big and brash, recalling Eminem at his most cartoonish, except it's subversively coming from a teenage girl who has distorted her voice until it vibrates against your brain, flitting from speaker to speaker in a stereo set-up, or rattling around your head.

Does any of this amount to anything good, or listenable? Well, surprisingly yes, and more surprisingly, also yes. Eilish, despite her lower-case song titles, dead-eyed gaze and phlegm-filled introduction, is not a disaffected avatar for 'the youth'. This is 42-minutes of Eilish relishing the opportunity to play with her persona, via cheeky line-readings and menacing production. (Eilish co-wrote and co-produced WWAFAWDWG with O’Connell.) There are fresh highlights ("xanny", "ilomilo") and old faves ("you should see me in a crown"). Not everything hits the target, and, yes, some of it is downright annoying. But is Billie bored? Unhappy to be here? Blasé? Nuh uh. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? reveals she's a savvy character-crafter; at her best when she’s being 'the most'. Duh.

3.5/5

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? is now available.

Header Image: Interscope