New album from Haim makes you believe rock might have a future
In the music video for “Want You Back,” the lead single from their long-awaited new album, the three sisters of Haim saunter down a deserted Ventura Boulevard, air-drumming as they pass the sushi joints and car dealerships of their native San Fernando Valley.
The video’s early morning shoot may have been the most alone time they’ve enjoyed since 2013. That’s when Haim released its hit debut, “Days Are Gone,” which, after years of hard work, finally launched this crafty family band to stardom — and to highly visible relationships with a diverse array of pop luminaries.
Taylor Swift befriended the sisters and took them on tour. Calvin Harris put them on an EDM track. Morris Day even recruited the trio to help him perform “Jungle Love” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Everywhere you turned, Haim was the life of someone’s party.
Now the group is back with “Something to Tell You,” which features contributions by what seems like half of L.A.’s musical community, including producers Ariel Rechtshaid and Rostam Batmanglij and instrumentalists such as Greg Leisz and Lenny Castro.
For all the voices in the mix, though, “Something to Tell You” still feels defined by the unique bond that connects singer-guitarist Danielle Haim, bassist Este Haim and guitarist-keyboardist Alana Haim. The record makes you believe in the “Want You Back” video image of three women sharing a vivid private language.
It also makes you believe that rock might have a future (even if it’s only the genre’s past). On “Days Are Gone,” Haim looked back to the polished sound of vintage Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, and here the sisters continue to rely on guitars and the like at a moment when many of their peers have little use for them.
In the title track they layer their vocals over a needling riff that recalls Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” (a frequent Haim touchstone), while the sparkling “You Never Knew” could pass for an outtake from “Tango in the Night.” Elsewhere, “Kept Me Crying” rides a driving groove with real grit around its edges.
You can tell the members of Haim care about their perception as players. Sometimes they’ll keep the buzz of an amplifier in a song or crank a slap-bass part as high as most bands crank the lead singer.
Yet Haim is hardly a purist’s operation; the group pairs its devotion to old-fashioned technique with a true love for the artificial magic of modern record-making.