Rock Bottom” by Sheer (Haimov)

The pop underground out of Israel has brought forth many incredible stories over the years, but if there’s one you need to hear for yourself today, it’s Sheer Haimov’s. What she’s learned from her experience in the military has given her a lot of perspectives, and she takes the lessons she’s embraced with her into the studio whenever she’s making new music.

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sheer_haimov/

With an angelic voice that feels sourced from an omnipotent force somewhere deep in the universe, she’s inspiring people around the planet in 2023 with her work, and in the new release “Rock Bottom,” she inarguably produces one of the best pop hooks of the season so far. Haimov doesn’t have to do much to flex a lot of muscle and versatility as an artist in this song, but while it’s obvious that her talents come to her without a boost from producers, she makes sure to use the studio environment around her to benefit the melodic content here excellently. In short, she’s not the generic pop singer you’re expecting to encounter at all – she’s a striking vocalist with the right kind of ambition to do just about anything she wants in this business

From the ground up, everything in this single is designed to surround and support the presence of the vocal, and yet I don’t know that I can describe “Rock Bottom” as being stereotypically singer-centric. There’s a sense of excess in the hook here that is just as enrapturing and potentially as responsible for the chills factor we get from the start of the song forward, and though I wouldn’t normally expect this much of a punch out of the backend of a pop mix, the oomph the bass and drums provide Haimov with works well to balance her already thunderous harmonies.

Contrast is something she’s going to have to cultivate with other material down the line, but this performance wasn’t necessarily about showcasing multidimensionality; after all, I think the sharpness of her attack indicates as much before we ever reach the climax of the track. The main harmony in “Rock Bottom” teases us with a nocturnal crooning I want to hear more of in a follow-up recording, and it goes without saying that every ounce of this material would likely hit even harder live, where an artist like Haimov can own the stage and the audience in front of her. 

If you haven’t already familiarized yourself with the force of nature that is Sheer Haimov, this new single and its parent discography are the right treasures to get you started in making an acquaintance with one of this generation’s most inspiring and exciting new players to debut out of Israel. “Rock Bottom” feels both proper and positively unorthodox in the best way a pop song can be, and if it’s par for the course moving forward, I think it would be safe to say that its singer is going to be seeing a lot more time in the international spotlight (particularly in the United States and Europe). 

Trace Whittaker