Around the 45-second mark of "If I Could Change Your Mind," Haim pulls a brilliant sleight of hand.
The song's slinky, minor-key groove slides into a sweetly understated chorus, with a soft background harmony that reinforces the yearning nostalgia of the melody. It's a beautiful hook, one that was permanently burned into my brain the moment I heard it.
Only that's not actually the real chorus: a few bars later, a twinkling keyboard enters and propels the song to a dazzling, cloudburst of a refrain. The thick harmonies faintly recall the soft-focus sparkle of Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere," and the shimmying backbeat lends a sense of urgency to the romantic plea of the lyrics.
The rest of Days Are Gone, the California sister trio's excellent debut album, is filled with such moments of deft pop craftsmanship. No matter how many times I listen to "The Wire" -- a song that appropriates the boom-thwack rhythm of "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and re-imagines it as a glittering glam boogie -- I still have trouble pinning down the exact moment that the pre-chorus glides seamlessly into the chorus. (Is it at the 50-second mark, when Danielle Haim eases into the tune's signature melody, or is it 10 seconds later, when the arrangement swells?)
And then there's "Honey & I," an aching Laurel Canyon ballad that drifts along with soft syncopations and start-stop rhythms before morphing into a full-blown barn burner towards the end and then mellowing out just as suddenly. Title cut "Days Are Gone" shows similar restraint; the chorus is uncharacteristically pedestrian, but the giddily chopped up vocals that emerge during the bridge in the final minute are dynamite.
Elsewhere, "Don't Save Me" and "Forever" pull the same trick as the aforementioned "If I Could Change Your Mind" by boasting pre-choruses that are every bit as catchy as the choruses, while "My Song 5" is laced with metallic robo-riffs and druggy pitch-dropped weirdness. All of these songs are impeccably produced, with sonically rich arrangements that find a middle ground between organic guitar rock and computerized radio pop.
No matter how many times I listen to Days Are Gone, I still don't feel like I have Danielle Haim and her sisters Alana and Este quite figured out. Their songs are warm and easily digestible, but with an underlying complexity that belies the singability of the hooks and keeps me on my toes. In pop music, there's nothing more exciting than that.
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