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Haim’s 2013 breakthrough single The Wire was a swaggering, high-spirited breakup anthem. The slick, twanging pop-rock was correctly identified at the time by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as echoing the oeuvre of Shania Twain (though this wasn’t the sick burn he thought it was), over which the LA trio copped to commitment phobia, communication issues and having their heads turned, before skipping into the California sunset with their hearts intact. Well, to commandeer the title of Haim’s debut album: those days are very much gone.
I Quit, the sisters’ fourth album, still has plenty of breakup songs, but these are no cheerful odes to dumping dudes in your 20s. Instead, the record fixates on the bitter end of a deeply flawed long-term relationship; at least some of these songs are informed by the love lost between lead vocalist Danielle Haim and Ariel Rechtshaid, the garlanded producer who worked on all three of the band’s previous albums (I Quit is instead helmed by Danielle, Rostam Batmanglij and Buddy Ross). The mood is not desolate – the narrator instigated the split – but it is searching and pained. The ex is portrayed as careless and manipulative, and punches are not pulled (“I swear you wouldn’t care if I was covered in blood lying dead on the street”). There are many references to setting oneself free, reflected in the – perhaps too on-the-nose – sample of George Michael’s Freedom! ‘90, which is woven through the opening track, Gone.
The idea of Haim sampling George Michael is more fun in theory than in practice: Gone is initially characterised by a low, flat vocal melody and sludgy instrumentation that manages to strip all euphoria from its co-opted “freedom!” refrain. But then a guitar solo that recalls the White Stripes in their pomp arrives, before this newfound garage-bluesiness is merged with Freedom! ‘90’s bedrock rhythm. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a song, but a belatedly brilliant one.
On Haim’s last album, 2020’s Women in Music Pt III, the sisters expanded on the perky and sometimes airless rock of their first two records to great acclaim. Gone hints at even more experimentation this time round, so it is disappointing to encounter the wan, plodding country-pop of All Over Me. But hold tight for track three, the absurdly delightful Relationships, which incorporates 80s bombast, the hyper-melodic, pitch-climbing toplines of 90s R&B and a valley-girl-ish take on old-school rap. It is the best pop song they’ve ever made.
I Quit peaks, spectacularly, here. The rest of the album’s 15 tracks range from fiercely good and instantly replayable to somewhat bland and instantly forgettable.
Haim have long been likened to Fleetwood Mac – a comparison Stevie Nicks recently endorsed, telling GQ that collaborating with the trio was “like coming home”. Yet in lieu of that band’s intangible magic and mystery, Haim are undoubtedly best when they add something new to the 70s soft-rock mix, which comes in fits and starts. Slipping into sprechgesang, as on the droll nostalgia-fest Take Me Back, always feels like a wise move, a chance to lean into the sisters’ GSOH, so obvious in interviews but less so in their actual songs. See also: Million Years, which employs a manic breakbeat and gloopy synths to wicked, bubbly effect; and the near-nu metal of Now It’s Time’s punchy, synthetic beat, buzzing guitars and whooshing production.
I Quit is sonically scattershot, but gratifyingly consistent in one regard. Over its considerable runtime, Haim rake repeatedly over the same heartbreak to construct a candid, complex portrait of a woman working hard to psychologically liberate herself from a relationship, laying out obvious toxicity (“an innocent mistake turns into 17 days”, of conflict, presumably) and harm (“you really fucked with my confidence”), while entertaining the notion that maybe all relationships are like this: “Is it just the shit our parents did? And had to live with it.” As a process, it’s messy, a bit like this album. But ultimately worthwhile, also a bit like this album.
This week Rachel listened to
Mark William Lewis – Tomorrow Is Perfect
The zeitgeist-lassoing film and TV studio A24 is sidestepping into music and Londoner Lewis is their first signing. The exquisite Tomorrow Is Perfect is like early Coldplay by way of the Durutti Column.
