It’s got a video now, so…
[Video][Website]
[7.62]
Sabina Tang: “Coming Down” was out and about the Internet as early as July 2011, in advance of Only In Dreams, of which it was a frequently-cited highlight. I remember this because in August I gave it the central position (7th track out of 13) on a mixtape, sequenced after “Just Like Honey” (which itself followed Mazzy Star’s “Blue Flower”), and before Fiveng’s “Easy.” Which is not to list references so much as to point out that Dee Dee holds up in the company she seeks. The build of the song is steady, ineluctable: she doesn’t just think, she knows she’s coming down. Already she sees clearly, and her judgment is irreversible. Numbness and disgust will swallow her completely. But the height she reached was dizzying, and for now she still musters the force of passionate conviction.
[10]
Brad Shoup: As stiff and admirably committed as a Christian-school prom in an ice cave.
[6]
Alfred Soto: In triumphant high notes Dee Dee wrests meaning from shopworn phrases while her band wrests context out of guitar peals, feedback, and metronomic drumming influenced by Psychocandy, a touchstone album for a lot of listeners who aren’t me. Maybe they think stretching this track to six minutes confronts the influence problem.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Continues to be as atmospheric, difficult, and dramatic as Dum Dum Girls have been historically, and the emotional rawness of the song edges between despondency and anger. Though she tells us repeatedly that she thinks she’s coming down, these five minutes are like a kestrel on jet streams — and that’s why I love them.
[8]
Jamieson Cox: “Coming Down” takes the jangling guitar more commonly heard in compact, tightly wound guitar pop and renders it epic, blown out, and subsequently a little more fresh. But this song is dominated by Dee Dee, with her soaring, dramatic vocal lending “Coming Down” its centre of gravity. After her first declaration of “I think I’m coming down,” I noted the unexpected power and sweep of her voice; after another six minutes of the same, I found myself invested in her beautiful decline.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: The promise of monochrome is that you’re extremely stylish. The danger of monochrome is that you’re extremely dull.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Even when I don’t love Dum Dum Girls’ songs, I love their sound; their guitar sounds can be soothing, seductive and sometimes weirdly percussive. And as a fan of female-fronted indie groups from the ’90s, a song that sounds like a cross between Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” and Echobelly’s “Dark Therapy” only needs to be half decent to win my approval. Being a shimmering dream of a song that chimes and exudes such luxurious warmth means it wins my love and devotion.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: Alternatively pained and seething, with a bridge quiet as a scalpel. If the world were fair, this would forever convince the world’s retromaniacs that the way to improve upon Mazzy Star is not to sound even sleepier. Hell, at this point it should probably convince Mazzy Star.
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