Album review: Haim, Days Are Gone (Polydor)
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.After a year of generating enough buzz to suggest a reversal in the decline of the world’s bees, LA’s three sisters Haim are now familiar enough to seem like two bands.
One is Haim in person, cracking-wise interviewees whose live form has involved stage-diving, thrillingly rock-ist covers of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” and, from resident wild card Este, the wickedest “bass-face” since Derek Smalls. The other is the studio Haim, whose tight fist of West Coast melodies, burnished 1980s pop and R’n’B polish packs a direct punch that could, still, benefit from more of the other Haim’s personality.
Granted, Haim whip up yesterday’s cheese into today’s hipster catnip with more panache than most MTV-era revivalists. After “Falling” arrives on a synthetic echo of Ultravox’s “Vienna”, overhauled fragments of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” (“Don’t Save Me”), Billy Ocean’s “When the Going Gets Tough” (country-pop bouncer “The Wire”) and Tango in the Night-era Fleetwood Mac (“Forever”) breeze by in bright flurries of snappy snare, sun-bronzed harmonies, soulful vocals (sister Danielle) and bubbly bass-lines: Este’s war-face on, no doubt.
The package is seductive, brimful of hooks – and, with Haim’s wit softened into songs of romantic anomie, so slick it slips down like ice-cream eventually. While newer tracks “My Song 5” and “Let Me Go” snag by throwing surprisingly moody shapes, Martika-esque closer “Running if You Call My Name” sounds like something smoothed for A-list romcom duties.
Days Are Gone cannily equips Haim for that kind of fame, but less familiar routes might be the making of them.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments