• Record Label: Sub Pop
  • Release Date: Aug 9, 2005
Metascore
74

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 18
  2. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. Like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Quit +/or Fight flirts with perfection, a cohesive collection of all-too-fleeting pleasures.
  2. There's enough diversity amongst these 11 songs to showcase the band's unique talents.
  3. Quit +/or Fight may lack the immediate melodic punch of the band's debut-- it forsakes pristine strums for skewering electric guitar and scrappier arrangements-- but what the record sacrifices in warmth, it makes up for in atmospherics.
  4. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    [Their] plaintive, country-tinged tunes are quietly lovely. [12 Aug 2005, p.79]
  5. Imagine a highly narcotic Shins with even more subtle instrumentation and you're getting somewhere close.
  6. Quit +/Or Fight is in a select catalog of records able to build songs out of studio arrangements that never seem contrived or overdone.
  7. It is clear Holopaw know how to unearth beauty when grounded in the harshness of reality; they also have the wisdom to leave the indisputably beautiful moments just as they found them: ready and able to elevate the soul.
  8. Urb
    80
    At times it can feel like the Flaming Lips locked in a log cabin with a bottle of morphine. [Sep 2005, p.119]
  9. Both intimate and powerful, Quit +/or Fight is a striking achievement.
  10. A work far more potent and lasting than their debut.
  11. Holopaw's delicate, subdued second album lacks their debut's sharp peaks and valleys.
  12. Like R.E.M.'s vaunted Murmur, these songs are most adept at creating worlds for the listener to enter and engage, which may be different with every spin.
  13. [Has] a mysterious backwoods vibe worthy of Murmur-era REM.
  14. Under The Radar
    70
    The songs aren't quite as immediate as their self-titled debut, but... they're making folk friendly for the electronic age. [#10, p.115]
  15. Alternative Press
    60
    Most of the songs... aren't nearly as interesting as the album's title, offering only random snippets of truly engaging music. [Sep 2005, p.156]
  16. Passively waiting to be noticed, Holopaw’s second album, Quit +/or Fight, is like the kid who never raises his hand in class but whom everyone knows is the smartest in the room.
  17. Orth would do well to pay more attention to whipping his songs into shape next time around.
  18. Magnet
    40
    Nearly buries itself in interesting ideas that are ultimately unrewarding. [#69, p.98]

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