In recent years, unfortunately, few relevant new rock bands have managed to reach the Billboard Top 100 of our dear southern neighbours. Unsurprisingly, from one year to the next, we find the same puppets dressed up as rich celebrities, smearing their fake lives across mainstream pop music designed to dull our minds in some shopping mall. Still, some bands manage to give us hope by trying, throughout their careers, to change the pop-music industry system from the inside. The three Haim sisters follow in this line with their new album Women In Music Pt. III.
The three singers and multi-instrumentalists affirm more than ever their values, and their pop-rock sound, through the 16 tracks of this third opus produced by Rostam (Vampire Weekend). They mix their influences of contemporary pop, ’70s country-rock, folk, and ’90s R&B, and compose accessible soft-rock tracks, often compared to those of Fleetwood Mac, sometimes a little bit meek but betraying nonetheless a playful, youthful sincerity and authenticity. The arrangements are funkier and more original than on previous albums. For example, the three musicians scatter in a few notes on piano, on saxophone, or various recordings of their daily life in Los Angeles, making the tracks seem more personal and lively.
This being the U.S., the car is the driving force behind the three young women’s reflections. Whether at the wheel, in the back seat, or in a parking lot, they talk about their hometown, the ups and downs of their relationships, the misogynistic behaviours still present in the music world, but above all about how they overcame the difficulties each of them had to face during the recording: Danielle was suffering from depression on her way back from tour, Alana was grieving, while Este was dealing with her health issues related to her diabetes. By sticking together through their trials and tribulations, the three sisters managed to create a more cohesive, more natural, sometimes even bolder sound, and write more introspective lyrics, which will undoubtedly speak very clearly to Generation Z.
