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Irish Independent
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Haim switch dial from 1970s to '90s (and back) for their most eclectic collection yet
Besides the collective, each of the sisters has carved out their own particular niche: Lead singer and guitarist Danielle Haim is very much a go-to guest vocalist, most recently on Bon Iver's Sable Fable album; multi-instrumentalist Alana Haim has shown serious acting chops and took the lead in Paul Thomas Anderson's '70s-set feature Licorice Pizza; bassist Este Haim was the music consultant on TV drama series, The White Lotus. Haim are leading lights of LA culture now, almost as celebrated for their fashion sense as they are for their music. Their fourth album, I Quit, arrives freighted with considerable expectation, but can it live up to the highs of earlier work? Down to Be Wrong is vintage Haim. A sultry, evocative song that will remind many of Sheryl Crow It certainly sounds subtly different to their previous albums. While '70s influences continue to abound, the 1990s plays a significant part too. That's apparent on opening track, Gone, which liberally uses George Michael's Freedom 90. And it's there again, on closer, Now It's Time, which takes the abrasive beats of U2's Numb and does something intriguing with it. If I Quit doesn't have quite the proportion of strong songs as debut album Days Are Gone, or indeed a single to match that of the peerless The Wire, it's comfortably their most eclectic collection. While some may lament the lack of focus, others will delight in the way the songs hopscotch from genre to genre with abandon. There's plenty of classic West Coast pop, fey balladry, excursions into indie rock, dalliances in funk and some soulful leanings, too. And it's a reminder of what an affecting vocalist Danielle is. She sounds effortless and yet you hang on to her every word. Down to Be Wrong is vintage Haim. A sultry, evocative song, its chorus soars. Not for the first time, it's a Haim song that will remind many of Sheryl Crow. One could imagine it taking pride of place on her 1993 gazillion-seller Tuesday Night Music Club. It is one of several songs that explore relationship break-ups. Danielle may well be writing about personal experience. Her nine-year relationship with Ariel Rechtshaid ended in 2022: he produced each of the previous Haim albums, but beyond a writing credit on standout song, the playful, seductive Relationships, he's nowhere to be seen here. Instead, Vampire Weekend founder Rostam Batmanglij, who had a part in the production of their two most recent albums, steps up to the plate here. The siblings are in good hands with Rostam — as he is now mononymously known — at the tiller. Guest vocalists are eschewed, and it would have been intriguing if Bon Iver's Justin Vernon had lent his voice to the giddy, commercially smart Everybody is Trying to Figure Me Out. After all, he is credited as one of the song's writers and composers.
Los Angeles Times
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Haim's new album gives vivid shape to a hard-to-define phase
Haim's 'I Quit' is not quite a breakup album and not quite a moving-on album; rather, the fourth LP by this beloved Los Angeles sister trio lands somewhere between those tried-and-true schemes: Its title inspired, the Haims have said, by a third-act mic drop in the cult-fave 1996 movie 'That Thing You Do!,' 'I Quit' is about looking back from the middle distance on a relationship that didn't work and assessing what you learned (and what you didn't) from the experience. 'Can I have your attention, please, for the last time before I leave?' Danielle Haim sings over a trembling acoustic guitar riff to open the album with 'Gone.' Then: 'On second thought, I changed my mind.' In 'All Over Me,' she's exulting in the erotic thrill of a new situationship — 'Take off your clothes / Unlock your door / 'Cause when I come over / You're gonna get some' — while warning the guy not to get out over his skis as any kind of partner. Este Haim takes over lead vocals for 'Cry,' in which she's unsure of her place in the seven stages of grief: 'I'm past the anger, past the rage, but the hurt ain't gone.' How to musicalize such a state of transition? On 'I Quit,' which Danielle co-produced with Rostam Batmanglij, the sisters do it with songs that go in multiple directions at once, as in 'Relationships,' which sounds like 'Funky Divas' meets 'Tango in the Night,' and 'Everybody's Trying to Figure Me Out,' a deconstructed blues strut that bursts into psych-pop color in the chorus. They do it by trying new things, as in the shoegazing 'Lucky Stars' and 'Spinning,' which has Alana Haim cooing breathily over a shuffling disco beat. (In some ways, 'I Quit' feels closely aligned with the newly sexed-up 'Sable, Fable' by Bon Iver, whose Justin Vernon was involved in a couple of songs on this album.) The Haims also do it, of course, by revisiting familiar comforts: 'Gone' samples George Michael's 'Freedom! '90'; 'Down to Be Wrong' evokes the blistered euphoria of peak Sheryl Crow; 'Now It's Time,' for some goofy reason, borrows the industrial-funk groove from U2's 'Numb.' Nostalgia figures into the lyrics too, but it's all very sharply drawn, as in 'Take Me Back,' a caffeinated folk-rock shimmy where Danielle is thinking about the people she used to know in the Valley — 'David only wants to do what David wants / Had a bald spot, now it's a parking lot' — and how much easier things were when she'd cruise Kling Street 'looking for a place to park in an empty parking lot just so you can feel me up.' (Great guitar solo in this one.) In 'Down to Be Wrong,' she looks out from her window seat on a flight to somewhere and sees 'the street where we used to sleep' — a reference, one presumes, to her ex Ariel Rechtshaid, who helped produce Haim's first three albums and whose presence looms here like a phantom. Case in point: ''We want to see you smiling,' said my mother on the hill,' Danielle sings in the loping country ballad 'The Farm,' 'But the distance keeps widening between what I let myself say and what I feel.' Oof. Yet on an album about choosing who to leave behind and who to collide with for the first time, 'The Farm's' emotional climax comes in a touching verse where one of Danielle's sisters tells her she's welcome to crash 'if you need a place to calm down till you get back on your feet.' The upheaval won't last; family is forever.
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lorde Returns With a Nostalgic Breakup Anthem, and 9 More New Songs
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week's most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here , and sign up for The Amplifier , a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs. In her first solo song in four years, after her boffo duet with Charli XCX, Lorde skips back past the guitar-picking, Laurel Canyon sound of her 2021 album, 'Solar Power,' to the keyboards and pumping electronics of her 2017 'Melodrama.' She sings about coming to terms with a breakup and missing past pleasures with someone — kisses, MDMA, a perfect cigarette — but she might also be speaking to her pop audience: 'Since I was 17, I gave you everything.' She brings tremulous drama to the vocals, but despite the synthetic firepower available to Lorde and her fellow producers — Daniel Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo) and Jim-E Stack (Bon Iver) — the track is oddly muted and rounded-off, even where it could explode. Maybe that choice will make more sense within a full album. Keys left behind, door locked, plane boarded — Danielle Haim sings about a decisive breakup in 'Down to Be Wrong' from Haim's next album, 'I Quit,' due June 20. As the song begins, with a chunky beat and a few guitar notes at a time, perhaps there's a hint of hesitancy in her voice. But as more instruments kick in and the miles of distance increase, her voice gets rougher and her certainty only grows. 'I didn't think it would be so easy till I left it behind,' she realizes, and her sisters' vocal harmonies fully agree. Of course Ariana Grande can sing an old jazz standard. She glides through a song from 1931 (by Fred Ahlert and Russ Turk) that has been recorded by the Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra and Kate Smith. Grande is one of the guest singers on Jeff Goldblum's album with the vintage-style Mildred Snitzer Orchestra; Goldblum, her 'Wicked' co-star, is on piano, playing a modest, leisurely solo. But the track is hers — a poised, guileless, gently escalating complaint about unrequited affection: 'You never seem to want more romancing / The only time you hold me is when we're dancing.' Understatement, so rare in current country production, burnishes 'The Touch,' a song that promises lasting love. 'As long as we're together, it's more than enough,' Ashley Monroe sings over Marty Stuart's lone acoustic guitar, which is virtually the only accompaniment for the first half of the track. Harmonies blossom and more guitars (and Shelby Lynne on bass) eventually join, but the mood stays pristine. 'Luna' hits a very sweet spot between Afrobeats and reggaeton as Wisin, from Puerto Rico, and Kapo, from Colombia, harmonize on a friendly flirtation: 'Just you and me in this room on a trip to the moon.' The production (by Daramola, a Nigerian musician based in Miami, and Los Legendarios, from Puerto Rico) is an ever-changing matrix of percussion sounds, electronics and vocal harmonies arriving from all directions. It's pure ear candy. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
HAIM Announce New Album I quit, Reveal Release Date
The post HAIM Announce New Album I quit, Reveal Release Date appeared first on Consequence. HAIM recently kicked off a new album cycle with two singles, and now they've revealed the project's title and release date. During an intimate club show at LA's The Bellwether on Wednesday night (April 23rd), the sisterly trio flashed the title I quit on the screen during the beginning of their intro video. They confirmed the news on Instagram, posting a clip culminating with the message, 'I quit new haim album coming June 20th.' Get HAIM Tickets Here The intro video featured numerous variations of the 'I Quit' theme, including: 'I quit what does not serve me, I quit overthinking, I quit shame, I quit nicotine, I quit fear, I quit dick, I quit judgement, I quit avoiding emotional intimacy, I quit my job, I quit caring about what you think, I quit waiting for an apology, I quit fucking around, I quit fucking everything, I quit fucking you, I quit wondering if someone will save me.' Update: According to a press release, I quit features 15 songs produced by Rostam Batmanglij and Danielle Haim. The album's artwork (seen below) was shot by director Paul Thomas Anderson. According to the band debuted a pair of previously unreleased tracks, 'Blood in the Streets' and 'Down to Be Wrong,' during their first full concert in nearly two years. The latter song is set for release this week. HAIM opened the set with their latest single, 'Everybody's trying to figure me out,' before dipping back into their catalog with early songs like 'The Wire' and 'Forever' alongside more recent tracks like 'The Steps' and 'Gasoline.' They closed out the set with 'Relationships,' which marked their first new song in nearly two years when it was released in March. See fan-shot videos of the concert below. I quit follows 2020's Women in Music Pt. III. Up next, HAIM will play a second show at The Bellwether tonight, April 24th. They have also lined up appearances at New Orleans Jazz Festival and Primavera Sound. Get tickets here. Popular Posts deadmau5 Apologizes for Blacking Out During Coachella Set New Pornographers Drummer Joseph Seiders Charged with Child Pornography The 100 Best Guitarists of All Time Lady Gaga Battles Tech Issues at Coachella: "At Least You Know I Sing Live" Beyoncé's "COWBOY CARTER TOUR" Set to Kick Off with Thousands of Seats Unsold Keanu Reeves to Play Villain in Weezer Movie: Report Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
