Dominic Fike’s sixth album, How to Quit Smoking, was released this Halloweekend. As its Halloween-marketed release date might suggest, the album is incredibly playful. With eight of the 15 songs functioning as collaborations, you can feel the simplicity of Fike and his friends making cheerful beats during pit stops on his ‘Comedy / Tragedy / Parody’ US summer tour.
After gaining fame in the HBO show Euphoria for playing the drug-addicted character Elliot, Fike has been open about his real-life struggles with addiction, homelessness, and the law – famously, his debut project, Don’t Forget About Me, Demos, was released while he was incarcerated in Florida. Fike’s raw, cut-away, radio-style mastering, overlaid with spoken-word rap and honest vocals, perfectly mirrors the rawness of his sobriety journey. This fluid, genre-bending oscillation between R&B, hip-hop, and indie rock is what makes his music so unique.
This distinct crafting of genres and the seamless shifting between acoustic and electric sounds is continued in How to Quit Smoking. Laden with fresh textures, such as the vocal fraying on ‘Squeeze,’ and exciting new collaborations – naming just two, the up-and-coming Love Spells on ‘Cabby’ and Hether on ‘Reno’ – Fike proves just how much more dynamic he can be.
The album is an ode to Fike’s sun-drenched, colourful, Floridian, Sunburn-esque roots. This is most evident in ‘Small Town’; layered with soundbites from the streets and choir-like backing vocals, the diversity of the arrangement is intensely evocative of childhood nostalgia. Fittingly, Fike has spoken about the album being inspired by homesickness and the feeling of getting older, having just turned 30.
Following his most recent album, Rocket (named after and dedicated to his son) this new album’s title is a nod to how his child inspires his ongoing commitment to sobriety. The closing track, ‘Spotlight / Inner Child’, is the ultimate culmination of this mindset. One minute into the song, Fike uses a voicemail conversation with rapper Tay-K to weave the story of the album as symbolic of the end of his self-professed spiritual journey, viewing smoking as the final addictive habit he has left to kick.
The spirit of celebrating the end of this long road is exactly Fike’s tone in How to Quit Smoking. It is a vibrant celebration of sobriety, of his dedication to the genre-bending craft that began as simple bedroom pop during his house arrest and, vitally, a beautiful collaboration with his inner child.
“Fike performing at The Wiltern in Los Angeles during the Comedy Tragedy Parody Tour in September 2026” by Jrogel3 is licensed under “CC BY 4.0“
