Sahaj Datta | Editor-in-Chief | The Chronicle
Album review
4 stars
Dominic Fike returns with “How to Quit Smoking,” a 15-track album capturing an artist caught between the freedom of his past and the responsibilities of adulthood. The record moves through alternative rock, indie pop and hip-hop while maintaining Fike’s familiar laid-back tone. His popularity has grown through songs like his 2018 hit “Babydoll,” recently popular on social media, and “Mona Lisa” from “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” keeping him on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album is especially interesting because of how it was created. Fike wrote, recorded and released music while on his “Comedy Tragedy Parody” Tour, working out of tour buses, hotel rooms and backstage spaces. This process gives the album an immediate, almost unfinished quality that reflects his life on the road.
“Wallflower,” “Small Town” and “Pangea” arrived as singles, while “White Keys” is an older, previously unreleased track. These returning songs make the record more like a snapshot of Fike’s creative process than a complete set of new music.
Fike’s conversational tone and catchy melodies remain his strongest features. “Small Town” features warm tones and nostalgic storytelling, while “Doomsday” balances an upbeat hook with anxiety about routine and distraction. Guest appearances from Grace Ives, Danny Brown and Tay-K add vocal diversity to tracks like “Honeylove” and “Not the Spirit.”
However, the album’s spontaneity also works against it. Quick shifts between collaborators make the record feel fragmented, while later tracks like “Squeeze” feel repetitive and underdeveloped.
Overall, “How to Quit Smoking” is an engaging, if uneven, record capturing Fike’s messiness while making music on the move. Although it lacks the cohesion of his earlier work, its raw production demonstrates an artist still trying to figure himself out.
