HAIM – Women In Music Part III review

Making music in the twenties dictates that every album is a difficult one, regardless of whether it’s the third or the tenth. Regardless, the Haim sisters have taken their time over Women In Music Part III, long trailed by the release of the Lou Reed inspired Summer Girl, a brassy remembrance of Danielle’s long distance calls to boyfriend Ariel Rechtshaid as he was receiving cancer treatment.

If that sounds like an an awkwardly voyeuristic window onto a private world, it’s to the trio’s credit that at no point is there a feeling of intrusion, even when Man From The Magazine deals with an overly personal hack asking all the wrong questions in an early interview. Indeed, the focus here is primarily outward, about making new connections with people and staying true, as on The Steps they rediscover working with guitars as a staple and opener Los Angeles finds them ultimately rejecting the idea of leaving their home town.

Women In Music Part III also gleefully refuses to be tied down to one thing or another, something which has always been at the root of their appeal in an entangled world. With 3AM they even deliver some old-ish skool R&B, but the album’s peak is in the rolling harmonies of Hallelujah, the kind of simple but deeply affecting song they were almost born to make. Everything is a risk these days, so why not simply take the ones which matter most.

You can read the full review here.