SLEEVE NOTES: HAIM - I Quit

June 2025 | Columbia Records

There’s a difference between letting go and giving up. I Quit lives somewhere in between.

On their fourth studio album, HAIM steps into a softer, stranger kind of power. The title sounds like a flinch, but the songs say otherwise. Born from real life heartbreak and the kind of burn-it-down clarity that only comes after years of pushing through, I Quit doesn’t sound like a band walking away. It sounds like a band digging deeper.

Danielle, Alana, and Este wrote this one from the same house they grew up in, back under the same roof, making late-night demos between grief and growth. There’s no big commercial swing here.. no “Summer Girl” or “The Wire.” What you get instead is a raw breakup album threaded with sisterhood, solitude, and little sonic ghosts from the past.

“Gone” feels like it was carved out of silence. “Relationships” opens with distorted grit and teeth. “Down to Be Wrong” gives old HAIM style vocal layering something new to fight for. They sample George Michael, U2, even the sounds of their own unresolved questions. This is the most emotionally open they’ve ever been, even when the lyrics are clipped and cool.

Production wise, I Quit marks the first album without Ariel Rechtshaid at the helm, and the shift is loud in the quiet. Rostam Batmanglij and Buddy Ross keep the palette wide but organic. There’s room for bruised basslines, ghostly harmonies, warm guitar, and tracks that flicker between late 90s indie, Laurel Canyon leftovers, and a flick of nu-metal grunge.

This era isn’t meant to be shouted from a mountaintop. It’s a mirror on the floor after the party. A coming-of-middle-age moment for three women who’ve done the global tour thing, survived personal unraveling, and come back together to figure out what’s left.

And what’s left… is actually something whole.

HAIM didn’t just make a breakup record. They made a stay up late record. An I still believe in me record. A love letter to each other when the world felt a little too heavy to hold alone