Review: Days Are Gone [Haim]

Days Are Gone- Haim

by: Sara Lawrence

When I started listening to them almost a year ago, I hardly expected to love the band Haim as much as I do now. I certainly didn’t expect for them to nudge their way in to the elite little group of my favorite artists – but there they are. And maybe it’s my sentimentality for the sounds of 70s and 80s soft rock and anything that even remotely reminds me of my favorite band Fleetwood Mac, but I’ve become hell-bent on showing everybody why I think these girls are so great.


I have already seen complaints on Tumblr (where I discovered this band, incidentally) that have debased them and other current female-fronted bands like them for not being “edgy” enough, for being “watered-down.” But does “edgy” always have to mean loud, angry guitars, or lyrics ripe with feminine rage?* I don’t think so. Not when Los Angeles sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim are just as talented and full of fire as any female musician that came before them. All three are multi-instrumentalists and masters of vocal harmony that I certainly wouldn’t be so quick to write off.

Days Are Gone, Haim’s debut album, was released in September of 2013 following the singles “Falling,” “Forever,” and “The Wire.” “Falling” was the first song I heard, and I listened because it was posted with a description that painted it as reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac. And it was. I could hear the influence right away. Danielle Haim’s guitar solo prowess is evocative of Lindsey Buckingham’s on songs like 1982’s “Hold Me,” and the rest of the track (and album) is full of big drum beats and 80s-style synth sounds that could be Stevie Nicks’ Rock a Little revisited. Needless to say I was smitten.

Days Are Gone as a whole is a magical, purely Californian melting pot of catchy, infectious dance hits like “Falling” and “The Wire,” and silky, gliding ballads like “Go Slow” and “Running if You Call My Name,” which for me draw forth feelings of nostalgia for a time gone by, like warm, smoggy days in the San Fernando Valley, circa 1979. My favorite is the breezy “If I Could Change Your Mind,” a song so redolent of 70s soft rock and 80s pop, with such a beautiful melody and effortless vocal styling, I find myself playing it so often I forget there are other songs on the album. And I love “Honey & I,” so candy-sweet and endearing, you can almost taste the honey in the title.

Though they have cited their influences as 90s R&B, anybody who likes, or at the very least appreciates, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, and The Beach Boys, should find themselves falling in love with Haim too.

And not “edgy” enough? Just tell that to bassist Este, infamous already for her “bass face” and vulgar banter onstage.

These girls have the kind of talent and power that can easily stand the test of time. I am so excited to see where their journey takes them.

*I love loud, angry guitars and lyrics filled with feminine rage. My other favorite band is Hole. But not every female-fronted band need fly that flag to be deemed worthy or good.