Producer Ariel Rechtshaid recently worked on Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires of the City, another saturated record packed with nimble tunes the other producer, James Ford (that's him pushing faders on the 80s pop of If I Could Change Your Mind), has overseen umpteen successful UK indie-mainstream crossovers (Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine). So while their offerings are often breezy pop bagatelles, Haim are thorough musos, using the studio as an instrument, augmenting their own bejewelled musicianship with the abrupt jump cuts only made possible by right-now digital technology, all couched in the eiderdown plushness of money well spent. Haim are a band who start and end songs with artisanal care. It's one of their most weirdly anachronistic songs, blending glam galumph with a catchy pop chorus, traditional three-part harmonies with almost-rapped verses "hey"s and guitar solos come flying in, as though from another studio. The band told Rolling Stone that they recorded The Wire at least 20 times. You really do believe that the year of delays has been down to the band's endless fine-tuning rather than their relentless interview commitments, so hair-splitting are its tiny decisions. The whole thing is about heartbreak.ĭays Are Gone is named after its own lengthy gestation. There's even something of Bruce Springsteen to Don't Save Me. Although the genres they frequently draw on might seem lightweight – 70s soft rock, 80s synth-pop – the levels of craft here are not. No one is saying that being in a rock band ought to be a dignified affair, but Days Are Gone benefits from being a serious album rather than just another opportunity for the California siblings to toss their hair. Media exposure hasn't exactly helped them foster mystique. Haim's music has justly been feted as the missing link between TLC and Fleetwood Mac – especially in the sense that no one ever previously thought to look for it – but Haim's USP has been that of a good-time band, toting the kind of outrageousness that can drift perilously close to kooky. Live, the girls trade ribald quips eldest, bass-playing stateswoman Este Haim – she of the ethnomusicology degree – regularly pulls the kind of orgasmic gargoyle gurns last seen painted on to Kiss. One of their first videos found the sisters riding mopeds around LA, intercut with home movies of themselves as kids. Goofing around with Haim: it has become something of an international sport.
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