HAIM

der, "If I Could Change Your Mind" rather.

The lyrics on this record are very well put together, smh at fitzmaurice's airy dismissal of them

it's a very "oh i broke up with this dude but you know what, i'm not gonna wallow, i'm okay, i am woman hear me roar" sort of record, idk i'm into that

i watched that letterman performance - does the bassist maybe have some form of tourette's? not trying to dis, i know what it's like to have tics and make weird faces when you play.

Bass face.

i know bass face and that's not just bass face

Bass Face Extreme.

Xtreme.

The Chairlift comparison is interesting because I love I Belong in Your Arms but the rest of that album was uniformly good and thus disappeared into the background for me as competent but the HAIM album I'm loving front to back even though there are clear highs. They both project that sort of competent-musicians-making-songs-reminiscent-of-a-particular-time vibe and I can't figure out if HAIM just has stronger songs or what

more personality for sure

Both albums were very labored-over, but only the Chairlift one sounds like it.

it's a very "oh i broke up with this dude but you know what, i'm not gonna wallow, i'm okay, i am woman hear me roar" sort of record, idk i'm into that

― monotony, Monday, September 30, 2013 3:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This thread is surely the most elaborate practical joke in ILX history. You guys totally got me. You zany madcaps! But now can we go back to talking about High on Fire and Velvets bootlegs and stuff?

The whole pitchfork review reads as really needlessly defensive.

i'm surprised they deemed it worthy of best new music tbh

it's bizarre that in 2013 they still have to hedge and equivocate about "polish," as if they were red state congressman afraid of their base.

"we're sorry that this sounds a million times better than a washed out record"

I dunno, I feel like there was a HAIM backlash out of nowhere in the past few weeks/months, and I'm not the only one who's noticed it

It's weird, too. What's even controversial or hateable about Haim?

Compared to some other sites on the net, I feel like Pitchfork was a little late on jumping onto the HAIM hype train. They didn't really make much mention of them until 'Falling' was released.

Wasn't sure whether I'd get into the album but this is very good! Sure, it sounds like a bunch of other things (the "This Woman's Work"-ims on "Go Slow" distract me every time) but it's still its own thing. I haven't read much in the way of interviews/dissection but lyrically it sounds like a breakup record? Lots of references to past good times/moving on.

Love love love Let Me Go.

am i the only one who's heavily reminded of shakespear's sister, voice of the beehive and stuff along those lines when i listen to this record? heck, i'm even getting

also, "my song 5" = sleigh bells. in fact, most of the album sounds pretty fucked up in terms of production. really liking this so far, esp the second half.

"Honey & I" = Texas

vinyl is @ 45rpm! two discs. no extras.

also: no typo on the back.

The vinyl was ridic expensive for the pre-order, though. It had better not have any typos.

i buy new vinyl like twice a year so i just ate the extra.

i'm pretty sure i like every song on this.

finally got to listen to this. is fun and good

i had intentionally not listened to 'falling' until now so i'd have more new stuff to enjoy w/ the full album, and that song is insane

This is probably my favorite album of the year. That said, as mentioned above, "The Wire" is perilously close to Amy Grant's "Every Heartbeat" and I wonder what my teenage self would have thought of it.

Also, yeah, "Falling" is the best song I've heard all year.

my favorite production on a track since i don't know when but a while ago

Love the little electro stabs on "Days Are Gone".

i'm taking my time working through the album but this stuff is just on another level

it isn't too polished?

Ariel Rechtshaid's production trajectory has gone parabolic, from Cass McCombs and Glasser to Usher ("Climax"), Charlie XCX, Vampire Weekend, and Haim in a couple of years.

i am of the opinion that there's no such thing as 'too polished'. i don't think 'polished' and 'sterile' are part of the same spectrum and this is the former but not the latter.

Not even that polished, the way the drums rudely burst in at the beginning and the end of Forever.

FWIW I really hate the post-Soft Bulletin trend of foregrounding drums like that.

I remember you recoiling from Diane Young for the same reason. I like 'em.

It works on Diane Young in the context of the rest of the album, usually it just makes a band sound cackhanded.

I love this album but struggle a bit with the more pastichey tracks. On the singles I hear influences but If I Could Change My Mind sounds too much like recreation, great tune notwithstanding.

gotta agree with the general meh upthread - this sound is already over-saturated, dunno how anyone can even hear anything of worth in it.

yay another indie band who can use reverb and everyone says sounds like fleetwood mac, i mean srsly we've had this as a blindly accepted "good thing" for what, seven years? ten years?

Not sure who has revived this specific sound before though?

"Sounds like Fleetwood Mac" can mean a lot of things.

yeah it seems to be used pretty lazily as a way of endorsing a band. or a broader sound.

all the lissvik-associated bands for starters have revived it (el perro del mar, there was another last year) - with varying degrees of success. there've been other inconsequential things i've listened to and forgotten about, i mean, do you really hear this and think "yes, finally someone is making this sound"?

fair enough if so. i mean parts of this sound like the 80s or whatever and parts sound like hot chip or something, there's a general digital indie pop thing which evokes the xx too.

"Sounds like Fleetwood Mac" is pretty reductive. Clearly influenced by Fleetwood Mac and a ton of other stuff, yes. Bottom line is they consistently write better songs than any of the other bands you're referring to - only Chairlift come close imo and, as noted upthread, they're on an artier tip.

http://www.collapseboard.com/reviews/albums-reviews/haim-days-are-gone-columbia/

However, if you’re someone over the age of 23 who professes to care about music and you buy this album, you should be ashamed of yourself. Grow the fuck up. Remaining a child all your life is nothing to be proud of.

I'll see how it settles in, I don't really feel like the songs are better, I reckon the El Perro Del Mar record is better than this, but I may just be incapable of liking a record I feel like I'll hear at every social occasion ever for god... three to four weeks at least.

xpost

This is nothing like El Perro Del Mar though.

I love that El Perro Del Mar record but it's going for a very different atmosphere, more hazy, more horizontal, kind of Balearic Julee Cruise vibe. There are similarities in the source material but the treatment is completely different to any Lissvik produced project really, the Haim album is a straight-up pop record.

Yeah these are proper, sturdy, radio-friendly pop songs, not the kind of fuzzy platonic-ideal pop that the Balearic crew produce.

i mean the 2009 epdm btw, more than pale fire.

I just feel like the rhythmic approach is very different to say Lissvik productions. I described it elsewhere as "all these nervous, stuttery 1987 grooves slowly unfurling and building momentum like a colt learning how to run for the first time."

The difference is that there is not really much if any disco (or synth-pop) in Haim's arrangements.

It's definitely the XX debut or Bloom of 2013, I'll grant you that.