HAIM – “Something To Tell You” (Album Review)

My first mature moment of musical frisson happened when I heard a half-second long piece of audio at the end of The Wire, the fourth single from pop-rock outfit HAIM’s 2013 debut album, Days Are Gone. That second of compressed three-part vocal harmony spliced between edgy power chords sparked within me a deep adoration the pop-ish, rock-ish, indie-ish stylings of three sisters from Southern California— and it clearly didn’t just affect me, either. Since Days Are Gone, Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim have won fans and friends in music greats like Stevie Nicks, Taylor Swift, and Calvin Harris, along with countless laylisteners the world over. Nearly four years after Days Are Gone’s unprecedented success, HAIM’s sophomore album Something To Tell You waits in the wings for its highly anticipated (some may even say long overdue) release. But for mega fans like me, has the wait and the hype been worth it?

Something To Tell You departs from the cool, spacey sounds of Days Are Gone, dripping instead with sepia-toned California sunshine. When Days Are Gone was released, many fans of HAIM’s electric live shows were disappointed with the synthed-up studio versions of their songs. The dichotomy between HAIM live and HAIM on record has clearly informed many of the production aspects of Something To Tell You— the new album is much more populated with frontwoman Danielle Haim’s guitar licks, Phil Collins-esque drum fills, and Danielle’s, Alana’s, and Este’s voices— the very thing that hooked me onto HAIM’s signature sound in the first place. But Something To Tell You is more than what I hoped it would be, and I don’t strictly mean that positively. While album’s virtues live in its clever composition, its vice lies in its excesses, especially in moments where Days Are Gone would have applied near-unwarranted restraint. Intros and outros are too often overmixed effects, and the songs themselves often have so many different layers of polish that unwrapping the track’s packaging for the goodies within takes a mite too much effort for the everyman. It’s difficult to say because Days Are Gone won me over so completely, but then again, Something To Tell You is a HAIM that is nearly four years further on. The album definitely shows a growth in confidence and synergy of the sisters’ music— they’ve found a groove and genre (decidedly decade-busting pop-rock) that’s thoroughly enjoyable, even if it lacks some of the scrappy grit that made HAIM so endearing in the first place. But then, if the three sisters can empty a California boulevard to strut alone as they did in their Want You Back music video, perhaps it’s wise for them to abandon the role of the underdog— the world (and the past fifty years) are their musical oyster. I went through the album track by track to tease out precisely what HAIM have done with their sophomore effort, and man was it ever a rollercoaster.

Want You Back

The second single from the album, Want You Back is a stunning opener to Something To Tell You and HAIM at their absolute best. I’ve already reviewed this track as a single (read that review here), and I stand by all of the praise I’ve heaped on it. For the HAIM-time newcomers, Want You Back raises HAIM’s banner high with eighties synth and guitar-driven rock. For the long-time HAIMers, Want You Back sparks afresh the sisters’ infectious synergy. The music video for this one is worth checking out, whichever camp you’re in. It’s a one-shot wonder of carefree white-girl dancing and the most powerful sister strut since Destiny’s Child. HAIM definitely has something to tell us—their days of lounging on lawn chairs in the San Fernando Valley are gone, and LA’s boulevards now part like the sea for Israel for three sisters striding in sync. My only complaint about the track is the sped-up outro— maybe I’m alone in this, but it tarnished the euphoric groove Want You Back left me in coming out of the last chorus, rushing me into the next track. For such a peculiar piece of polish, it felt a little uncreative. Regardless, the track and the video have been on non-stop repeat since their release, and I feel they will be for quite some time.

Nothing’s Wrong

While this track hasn’t yet been released as a single, it’s one that HAIM fans have been aware of the longest. At live shows in 2016, HAIM played both Nothing’s Wrong and Little Of Your Love (track 3) in full, but this is the one I was most excited about, and for good reason. It’s still fresh, but carries HAIM’s tenacity in the same way that made The Wire a cool, if unexpected, hit. HAIM strike the balance between synthy layers and raw instruments near perfectly with this track, driving home a neo-80s aesthetic with call-and-response vocal harmonies and glittering, gritty guitar riffs, underpinned in the chorus by rapid cymbal-heavy percussion. Lead guitarist/vocalist Danielle is at her vocal prime in this track, and bassist Este’s echoes are HAIM all over. The track seems to make the most sense imagined live, and as such, I feel that HAIM could have left much of the raw instrumentation of the dynamically-downplayed bridge untouched. Nonetheless, Nothing’s Wrong is a standout; it’s a gutsy and gallant addition to the HAIM hall of fame.

Little Of Your Love

HAIM are frequently compared to 70s and 80s pop-rock sensation Fleetwood Mac, a comparison they confess to feeling “squeamish” about. But… come on. With Little Of Your Love, they’re damn near asking for it. It’s rocky, bass-driven stuff punctuated with rapid vocal harmony and quacky lead guitar lines that are altogether too easy to clap and stomp along to. It’s bolder and more bombastic than its Days Are Gone counterpart The Wire, and if the world has any justice, should see the same amount of success, both in terms of radio play and live performance— it even has the same ingenious undergirding of some bowed strings in the final chorus. Again, I feel that the track’s weaknesses all concern overproduced effects, particularly in the intro. We know HAIM have got the goods if only they’d just get straight into it.

Ready For You

The album jumps decades and genres a bit with this track to sparser, cleaner RnB and pop influences. Lyrically, there’s nothing new under the sun for HAIM— it’s whimsically pining, serving best as a syllabic base for the infectious melodic contour. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. It’s hard to find a song this poppy that prioritises a dynamic chorus, rather than joining the masses of Katy Perry-esque one-note wonders. The bridge breaks down in a Pentatonix-levels-of-textured chord sequence that shows a HAIM willing to try some new tricks in their sophomore venture. Ready For You still has all the markers of HAIMishness— the vocal harmony, the syncopated percussion, the guitar licks— but I hope they don’t continue much farther down this road, because what Ready For You compensates for in clean production, it loses in charm. That’s not to say it’s not catchy, though.

Something To Tell You

The album’s title track throws back to 80s soft rock in a big way. Saturated in harmony, populated with expansive drums fills, and accented with high bass riffs, Something To Tell You still doesn’t reach the emotional heights of its spiritual predecessors. It’s still a dynamic track, and one of the better mixes on the album, but as much as it gives HAIM’s sophomore effort a name, I feel like that‘s not where it was designed to stay. Where the studio edition seems a bit sterile, I can see how the track would take on a new energy live. Sometimes the studio removes the magic inherent in music, and I feel that Something To Tell You is one of those tracks HAIM wrote to perform— if their live shows are anything to go off, the stage has always been more of a home to HAIM than any studio. Nonetheless, Something To Tell You is as earwormy as its 80s influencse— it remains to be seen whether HAIM’s neo-80s vibe will stand the test of time.

You Never Knew

This is where Something To Tell You lost me for a bit. It felt a little like I had stumbled into a low-lit den of 70s architecture, complete with disco ball and yellow-beige décor— eccentric, lukewarm, and altogether a bit off-putting. You Never Knew is built on a cacophony—there are so many different sounds meeting, so many different licks overlapping, that I couldn’t settle into a groove enough to get the meat out of the track. But that’s not to say the track is void of substance— in fact, I’d love to see what HAIM do with an unplugged version of You Never Knew. Perhaps without the schizophrenic shift between 70s soft rock and 2000s RnB, You Never Knew would have enough power left in its groove to drive the track into the cool heights of memorability. This is the one track on the album I can’t claim to like, even if it has its moments, but damn if I can’t get it out of my head.

Kept Me Crying

Kept Me Crying returns to the sisters’ rockabilly roots from HAIM’s origin story— the charity band they played in with their parents (quaintly called Rockinhaim). It’s dripping with fuzz pedal and, like the rest of Something To Tell You, makes great use of three-part vocal harmony. There’s a delicious angst to this song, destined for weepy post-breakup sing-alongs. The pulse, the riffs, the whole shebang is a beautiful mess of feelings. Kept Me Crying is one of those rare occasions where I feel HAIM have nailed an emotion. Like Little Of Your Love, though, it takes too long to sink into the angry rock vibe in the intro. Chopping ten seconds from the top and tail of many tracks on Something To Tell You would, I feel, lift it from simply enjoyable to an experience, and none more so than here. All the same, Kept Me Crying is a lovesick anthem worthy of any breakup playlist.

Found It In Silence

Found It In Silence is the most readily cinematic of all HAIM’s studio releases so far. Fuelled by call-and-response vocals, euphoric strings and HAIM’s signature tribal drums, Found It In Silence is a shining moment to finish the album’s slightly confused second act. Save for some demented dial-up noises that serve as an intro (why, HAIM, why?) Found It In Silence feels like it’s the sort of sonic stride that HAIM should be experimenting with by their sophomore album. I say experimenting because, as a band that shines the brightest on a live stage, I struggle to see where they’re going to fit this in a setlist without carting a strings section with them or giving the mix a major overhaul. Found It In Silence is probably the most out there of all the tracks on Something To Tell You, but listeners of Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, and Of Monsters and Men will appreciate the folky flavours in the mix. To cap it off, this outro doesn’t feel tacked on at all— the instrumentation fades and leave the three sisters singing wicked layered harmonies. Yes, HAIM, more of this!

Walking Away

HAIM finally embrace a more minimal vibe in Walking Away. They forsake guitar as the musical focal point for simple click percussion and pure vocals. It’s RnB a la TLC, and oh, gee, if it isn’t the most lyrically dense HAIM have ever been. Just so long as the sisters don’t walk away from their rock pedigree and prowess towards rap. There’s not much to talk about here— the track is sparse and cool, a break from the wide mix of sounds in the album’s second act. It’s not a single, by any stretch, but for Something To Tell You as an album, Walking Away serves its purpose in demonstrating HAIM’s proficiency as vocalists.

Right Now

I’ve already reviewed this track as a single, but as far as its place in Something To Tell You, I’m glad that it fell where it did— bringing the devastating sparseness of this track out much earlier would have undermined HAIM’s intentions with the soft rock-RnB fusion of earlier tracks. While Right Now does indeed consist largely of post-production effects, it maintains its integrity in preserving the brushstrokes of the production process— one of my favourite moments is the drippy buzz that comes in when Alana flicks on her foot pedal pre-earbusting power chords. When I reviewed this the first time around, I thought that the raw piano would figure a lot more throughout the album, but now I see that it’s actually a rare treat for HAIM’s typically synthed-up tracks. Right Now is probably the juiciest of offerings in Something To Tell You for those seeking to sink their teeth in. It’s definitely a worthy single and plays well to HAIM’s strengths. The live versions of Right Now that have emerged since its release have been phenomenal— HAIM amp it up onstage, adding guitar riffs and the token drum circle that flourishes their encore. But as an aperitif (or a token of remembrance, for the lucky few) of HAIM live, the studio version of Right Now distills HAIM’s grand intentions well— it’s well-mixed, atmospheric, and infinitely replayable.

Night So Long

HAIM cap off Something To Tell You with the rock nocturne Night So Long. It’s one of the most straight-up melancholy tracks HAIM have ever released. Sonically, it seems everything is dipping below the horizon. It’s lyrically bare but emotionally loaded, the inverse of much of Something To Tell You. Effects here are well used to offer the music that dusky detachment, letting Danielle’s lead vocals and the sisters’ high harmonies shine. Extensive use of chorus and reverb adds to this spaciness without becoming overpowering, and the instrumentation is just the right amount of layered to set a cold starscape. For an offering by a band known for their “depthless” pop rock, it’s intensely visual music. And for once, it seems to disappear too quickly, letting the reverb handle the last tendrils of sound rather than leaving off with a 90s-style fadeout. It makes me want to do the whole thing over again— surely there’s something I must have missed, to leave me feeling so hungry.

After Something To Tell You, I still love HAIM. I love the musical tropes that they’re strong in, I love their live-savvy composition, and I love their ability to reach back into yesteryear and resurrect the best parts of it. Something To Tell You did all of these things in spades, but I must acknowledge that the album didn’t floor me nearly as much as I hoped it would. But then, maybe that’s not the point. Something To Tell You is a HAIM that is growing a skill set, rather than riding the success of Days Are Gone from until their days in the limelight really are gone. Something To Tell You is a statement bolder and brasher than Days Are Gone, if a bunch more polished; it’s a logical next step for a band that stands proudly on the backs of giants and has plenty of potential left in the bank. I acknowledge that I may be holding HAIM to a ridiculous standard here, but I’m still going to enjoy Something To Tell You until long after their next studio offering. HAIM are still the catchy-pop, edge-of-rock, kooky trio that the world has grown to love over the past four years, and we know that when it does come down to the wire, they’ve got the goods for groove-worthy tunes. But keep it simple, sisters. No pressure.