HAIM - I quit

Nowadays, the album rollout is as important as the album itself, and HAIM couldn’t have nailed that any more perfectly. Bringing together iconic celebrity paparazzi moments and star-studded music videos to mark the release of their now iconic singles ‘Relationships’, ‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’, and ‘Down To Be Wrong’, fans have understandably been whipped up into a frenzy, ready for the new album, ‘I quit’.

The aforementioned singles speak to the sisters’ ability to grin at situations designed to make you grimace, something that re-establishes itself in the sampling of George Michael classic ‘Freedom’ in opening break-up track ‘Gone’. ‘Take Me Back’, a 1970s folk-rock track with very 2025 lyrics, underlines the band’s ability to write catchy songs that are identifiably their own.

If we were to sum up ‘I quit’ in one word, the word is nice. Lyrically, it carries the sort of message we’ve grown to expect from HAIM, one of previously failed romances that have ultimately led them to where they’re meant to be. ‘The Farm’ and ‘Blood On The Street’ channel very en vogue Americana, while ‘Try To Feel My Pain’ brings in echoes of Cali-drenched hit ‘Summer Girl’. Este-led ‘Cry’, Alana-led ‘Spinning’, and Danielle-led ‘A Million Times’, use dance-pop adjacent rhythms to inject some life into the otherwise quite pared back palette, but it’s most effectively done with unexpectedly warped guitar in closer ‘Now It’s Time’.

‘I quit’ is a record that’s fallen straight out of 1977, bringing in whispers of Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young and Gloria Gaynor: one or two more daring decisions and it would be truly great.