(Polydor)Dark events of the sisters’ recent past inform their revelatory third album on which garage and louche funk combine with west-coast rock
A certain lightness has always played about the work of Haim, the three multi-instrumentalist sisters from
Los Angeles. Even as their two critically acclaimed albums, indebted to R&B and soft rock, often riffed on romantic angst, a sense of effortlessness remained uppermost in the band’s sound. Like their most obvious lodestones, Fleetwood Mac, there was no topic that Haim’s retro harmonies could not turn into insouciant-sounding gold.
Haim’s third album retains some of their perpetual glide. But this is a set in which everyone is dancing with tears in their eyes, and one where Haim’s pat affiliation to 70s west coast truisms undergoes some interesting seepage. More so than ever before, Haim venture outside their musical Hotel
California, with jazz saxophone and
UK garage beats heading up a lively new intake of sounds. Intermittent blasts of lurid electric guitar – witness the chorusing riffola on All That Ever Mattered – are there to underline the trio’s allegiance to rock
music. The song’s treated banshee wails attest both to the band’s interest in fresh production textures and the need for a little primal scream therapy.