HAIM
I Quit
COLUMBIA/POLYDOR
“I quit.” It’s a phrase that says “I’m not gonna take anymore of this shit,” whether at work or at home. The HAIM sister trio’s fourth full-length is a summer breakup concept record that’s intimate, powerful, and too scattered within its catharsis. The quintessentially LA band has created plenty of joyful end-of-relationship tracks over the years, but I Quit triples down on the fallout rather than on the detonation of a longterm and emotionally broken partnership. Some of these tracks are, indeed, directly influenced by lead vocalist Danielle Haim and producer Ariel Rechtshaid breaking up after his collaboration on the last three HAIM records.
Here, HAIM enlisted production assists from Buddy Ross and Rostam Batmanglij, the latter of whom matched Rechtshaid’s extensive list of production and instrumental credits on the trio’s last album, 2020’s Women in Music Pt. III. Danielle’s ex is shown here as devious and unkind on several tracks, and there are plenty of lyrical references to setting yourself free, perhaps most memorably with the sample of George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” on opener “Gone.” On their prior record, the sisterly trio experimented beyond their pop-rock beginnings. Yet there’s some backpedaling going on on this record—the pedestrian Shania Twain country-pop track “All Over Me,” the well-trod HAIM melodies heard on “Take Me Back,” the synth-rock on closer “Now It’s Time.” The former is the most direct track on the album, a capsule of primal lust that doesn’t waste any time getting to the point.
Early single “Relationships” is the best track by a wide margin, though. The confident song mixes ’80s pop and ’90s R&B with the swagger of hip-hop. I Quit is full of such strong posturing, but many tracks in the back third lack a true melodic spine. The album’s 15 songs range from instant earworms to instantly forgettable. For over 50 minutes, HAIM sing a whole lot about heartbreak until the concept becomes nearly exhausting. I Quit should have quit while it was ahead.
