Me and this band go way back

Review of HAIM's "Women in Music, Pt. III"

HAIM—Women in Music, Pt. III

Released February 19, 2021

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to actually listen to a full HAIM album. I remember hearing them for the first time when I was getting ready in the morning for high school and caught the video for their song “The Wire” on Palladia (which apparently rebranded to MTV Live). Then a few years later when I was on a trip to the UK after I graduated, I saw posters for their second album in the tube station, which coincidentally was released on my birthday. Then they were featured on Taylor Swift’s “no body, no crime,” my favorite song from evermore and they have since toured with Taylor and appeared in her video for “Bejeweled.” So I feel like I’ve always known of them, I’ve consistently liked the singles that have come from each album, but I’ve had yet to listen to a full album. Until now.

From the songs I had heard already, including “The Steps,” “Gasoline,” and “FUBT,” I was expecting the rest of the album to sound more like these. I still enjoyed the album, but the actual vibe is much more eclectic. The album opens with “Los Angeles,” an ode to the band’s hometown, which has a funky Coltrane/A Love Supreme instrumentation in the first few seconds, setting a completely different tone than I was expecting. By track 3 “I Know Alone,” we have another vibe already with a dance beat throughout the song and track 6 changes vibes again to an R&B sound.

However, what always stands out to me about this band is their songwriting and their vocals. Other artists may sound like them at times, but they’ve really cultivated a sound that is so them that I know a HAIM song when I hear it. And I think a lot of that comes down to Este Haim’s playing. Este is a fellow Musicologist, having studied Ethnomusicology at UCLA and I wouldn’t be surprised that in her studies, she was exposed to a lot of other cultures’ style of playing which I think then has influenced the way that she plays.

My favorites remain “The Steps,” “Gasoline (feat. Taylor Swift),” and “FUBT,” but I also added “Up from a Dream,” “3 AM,” “Don’t Wanna,” and “Leaning On You.”

“FUBT” might be one of my favorite songs ever, from any artist. The writing, the vocals, the sound of the guitar, the outro, it all just scratches my brain in the best way. At 3:13, frankly it’s not long enough, I need a 10 minute version ASAP. And the lyric “How can I sleep when I can’t dream at night?/How can I dream when I can’t sleep at night?” is one of those moments where I’m asking myself how this exact stringing of words has never existed before. Art is so powerful and magical and it’s moments where I’m left asking how this song hasn’t always existed that I’m reminded how magical it can be.

A few songs I really didn’t care for are “I’ve Been Down,” and “All That Mattered.”  Two of the bonus tracks, “Now I’m In It” and “Hallelujah” I liked much better than most of the back half of the album. In fact, I think those two bonus tracks could have taken the place of “I’ve Been Down” and “Man from the Magazine” respectively. As much as I adore “FUBT,” it does seem like an odd closing track. The final bonus track “Summer Girl” could have wrapped up the album nicely as track 14.

I listened to the Deluxe version on Spotify, which included two features and three bonus tracks. I did like the Taylor Swift feature version of “Gasoline” better than the album version. I didn’t realize how much was added to it in the feature version until I was waiting for specific echoes and backing vocals that weren’t there. Having heard the feature version first, it makes the album version sound sparse.

For an album released in February, this is such a warm weather album. “Gasoline” is already in mu Ultimate Summer Playlist and a few more from this album may join it. It was different than I was expecting, but I enjoyed it all the same. Now I’m going to go play “FUBT” on repeat.