[10] Haim, ‘Falling’

2013-haim

“We were pretending to be them,” says Junior and she’s right. Look, I’ve got three daughters, I can be a Mr Haim or Mathew Knowles too – the kindly Svengali putting his daughters on the stage, Mrs Worthington, and supplementing his pension. That Junior and her sisters attempt to be Haim with a plastic microphone, plastic keyboard (set to ‘Jingle Bells’) and a plastic guitar (with a dozen pre-programmed riffs) is neither here nor there. You have to start somewhere.

Everyone yaps on about Fleetwood Mac when they talk Haim – possibly subliminally influenced by their vicious ‘Oh Well’ cover – but they’re three Sophie B Hawkinses, aren’t they, peddling catchy pop with a gung-ho rock touch. ‘Falling’ has a dexterous earworm chorus and half a dozen of the 139 “I know”s peppered across Days Are Gone, and the top two Juniors sing as much as they can keep up with. Now, major labels, you know where I am.