Review Summary: wow, looks like there’s new music to be played in rundown JCPenneys nationwide!
HAIM have been a pretty polarizing band of the past decade. Their debut stirred up
a lot of buzz when that dropped in 2013 due to its strong empowering message, irresistibly catchy hooks, and what it wound up doing for female-only bands in not only their scene but music in general. It was rightfully so though, as their debut triumphed over indie-pop music as a whole, and had plenty quirky 80’s-isms to satisfy even the most seasoned of indie-pop listeners. But the issue of starting off so strongly with a debut like
Days Are Gone is, where do you go from there? Where
could you go from there? Especially after 4 years in between albums, having a “sophomore slump” seems inevitable.
So going into this, I really had no idea what to expect; I hadn’t listened to any of the teaser tracks that were released beforehand, and all I had to go from was their previous record. So let me just get this out of the way when I say, if you’re a fan of
Days Are Gone, just go listen to that instead. Picking up a copy of
Something To Tell You isn’t worth it.
Something To Tell You is just a fluid, gutless, and monotonous shadow of its predecessor. Any traces of empowerment and a message have been replaced with inoffensive and unoriginal synthpop-laden love songs that just leave you wishing for something more. There are decent hooks placed pretty well across this thing, but that’s really all this record has to offer. Sonically, the record flows almost
too well. When I say that, I mean, if you’re not paying attention, the entire 45 minutes will go by in the blink of an eye, The issue with that is, if you
are paying attention, those 45 minutes will feel like hours, as everything sounds so similar in tone and monotonous, as almost every song sounds the same besides lyrics and the odd bass or synth line here and there. There is almost nothing gratifying about the record in its intricacies.
What really tops this cake off as a disappointment extraordinaire is its lack of message. HAIM were really backing up their message and their empowering ideals for feminism and liberal ideologies with catchy hooks coupled with actually interesting instrumentation on
Days Are Gone, which made for a phenomenal and more notably, an
important listen for the time. Their interviews where they would constantly state they’re a band and not a “girl band” feel almost empty when there’s no power to that message on this record and they just conform towards what they were fighting against. What’s left here just feels like HAIM realized it had been 4 years in between records and just wanted to throw whatever they could together, and it just feels rushed, lackluster, and painfully gutless. While the singles will probably be in rotation around the citizens of Tumblr for next year or two, as a full listening experience,
Something To Tell You feels like there could have been so much more in substance, and in message, as we all know HAIM were way more capable than this painfully average listening experience.
