within songs sometimes feels same-y
EDIT1: gets better after multiple listens
EDIT2: keeps getting better, super consistent super well crafted songs
RELISTEN1: growth largely petered out, stabilized and the albums never really grew on me like the songs did, which is a big deal for me
RELISTEN2: This change has been gnawing at the edge of my attention for a good long while now, I just hadn’t yet gone and done the work to figure exactly what the change needed to be. Upon an attentive relisten, I’m bumping them back down to A. Part of it is just general, is kind of ineffable, is the feeling I get when I’m listening where I go, “There’s no way I like this more than x, y, or z, right?”. I can’t really put it in more concrete terms than that, but it’s a feeling I know well, that I’ve learned to trust. It’s what usually prompts me to add artists to my relisten list, and it’s usually right, even if it takes me a while to really catch up to it. I say that because the specific things that irk me are the same things as when I first listened to them, they’ve just grown louder now that the band and I are out of the honeymoon phase. One- they feel a little samey, a little repetitive. 4 minute songs that should’ve been 3 minutes but threw in two extra choruses just ‘cause. Two, I don’t like their albums enough as albums. I don’t think albums have to be concept albums to be good, but I do think they need to be cohesive and unified, to be a work instead of a collection, and I just do not get that feeling from HAIM’s first two albums. Num 3 saves it, though- that’s a good album, as an album. If not for that, I might’ve dropped them all the way to a high A-. As it is, I’m happy with the A
tunafruitsandwitch 