Hi, everyone. Ithony Quittano here. The internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of the new HAIM album, I Quit.

West Coast pop rock outfit HAIM. They are back with their fourth full-length LP. Their first record in five years following a really curious absence. I mean, yeah, this is the biggest gap we have seen between two HAIM albums so far. Their first three records came in a pretty tight streak. Their debut actually recently turned 10 in the past couple of years.

When HAIM originally burst onto the scene with a lot of hype, they were just this fresh, new, slick pop rock act with a lot of great grooves, even better hooks. Their first record was solid. Their second, not quite as much. A bit of a sophomore slump type situation. But honestly, I loved their third album, Women in Music Pt. III, which I think has aged fairly well in the past five years. Most definitely, their most adventurous album so far. Not only because the songs on that album were pretty sick, but it answered a question that I had sitting in the back of my mind when I heard the band's first record and thought, This is cool, but what would the band sound like if they leaned a bit more into their alternative influences?

And not only did they do that on [that album], but they brought on Rostam, Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend fame, to help along with the production. Rostam is a super talented producer whose junk yard approach to assembling instrumentals leads to a lot of production that is very colorful and eclectic, playful and loaded with personality. I mean, that wild banshee scream on the track "All That Ever Mattered" still haunts me to this day. Like a legit pop jump scare on that one.

I also love the sense of adventure HAIM brought to the table on the songwriting side of that record, too. You had tracks that with a little bit of reggae. You had HAIM also giving some nods to Joni Mitchell, too. Of course, you also got their usual mix of '90s radio, pop, and rock with maybe a touch of country here and there.

But yeah, HAIM are a very well-rounded, talented group whose last record, in my opinion, was great, and it just had me wondering when the next one would drop. Even though it did take five years, once again, we do have Rostam in the mix helping the girls with production, which to me is a good sign or at least signals that the group and everybody was pleased with what happened creatively on the last album. So maybe we would see a repeat of that same magic.

But now, actually listening to the album multiple times over. I'm sitting here wondering, what the hell happened? This thing is like the bizzarro version of the last album. I feel like this record comes from a timeline where we now get to hear everything that could have wrong on that album. I mean, I wasn't necessarily jazzed about a lot of the singles, but I thought that there would be some more redeeming songs in the deep cuts, but God... It's difficult to know where to start because this record is just a drop off in quality in just about every possible way.

I mean, the production with Rostam behind the wheel there, for the most part, is once again eclectic and unpredictable and a little all over the place. But now on this record, it comes across more like an ill-conceived mess than methodical experimentation. We hear this right from the opening track, "Gone", which not only features just these weak guitars and boring vocal performances, but also maybe the worst and most awkward application of a George Michael sample ever in all of music history. The general mix on this track is so awful. It has me missing the days of HAIM's first record where their performances and singing and everything just sound a lot more well-regulated and, I want to say, intentional.

Also lively, because, for example, the track "Love You Right", while sure, you could say the chorused guitars and blown out drums on this track do give the recording a bit of a strange and off-kilter flair, that still doesn't change the fact that the gentle piano breaks and the beats themselves and the guitars just sound so lifeless and stiff. I don't feel like I'm listening to people coming together and playing instruments. I feel like I'm listening to a bunch of random fucking sounds slapped together in a multi-track.

It's not just the issue of this being HAIM's worst sounding album yet, and I think this is most certainly that. There are a lot of tracks that just make me wonder, did the girls just forget how to write bangers? Like with "All Over Me": "I want you all over me." Like, that's it? Really? But honestly, fucking "Relationships" makes that track sound like a Magnum Opus by comparison. A waste of a really cool beat on that song, too. This interesting pop, throwback hip hop fusion too. There's also another single on the record, "Take Me Back", that I actually did love. But part of me wonders if this fuzzy, lofi, fast-paced, indie rock, talk-sung, jam thing is really HAIM's strong suit, or if it's even what their fans are really looking for from them.

Even when the songs on this thing are halfway decent, they just sound like songs that wouldn't have made it out of the studio during a Sheryl Crow or Counting Crows writing session. Meanwhile, there are other songs that I think are decent at their core, but once again, they are paired with terrible production ideas that I think kneecap their full potential. We're really trying to put high end to break beats... why? And the track "Lucky Stars" is so caked in these fuzzy, boring, bland guitars, I can barely make out what's going on underneath it all.

Before I really go any deeper, and I don't know if I really need to because the ending of the record is just as disappointing as the start, I'll just say this record really does live up to its title because it does feel like the band quit on this one. It just feels like they quit and didn't focus in the same way they typically do on making sure the songs were hitting, making sure the performances were tight, making sure the vocals were strong, and above all else, making sure the instrumentals were well-assembled or at least interesting with Rostam at the helm there.

But none of that really comes through on this new album. This record just is a boring mess. Again, like the polar opposite of everything that was great about the last album, which for HAIM was a fairly experimental, wild, out there record in terms of production and songwriting. But the experimentation this time around not only comes across as much weaker, but the songs it's attached to are far less interesting.

I mean, I feel like one thing I can give this record is that at least on the lyrical front for much of the album, it's a pretty thorough exploration of relationships, mostly going south, or the freedom you may feel after a really cathartic, life-changing breakup.

But still, as consistent as HAIM is on at least the lyrical front on this record, it just does not make up for the inconsistency with everything else. Unfortunately, I'm feeling a strong 4 to a light 5 on I Quit.

Anthony Fantano, HAIM, I Quit.