His tattoo artist appears to have forgotten half the staff…
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[4.38]
Anthony Easton: I am looking forward to a pop song that allows for our essential mediocrity.
[2]
Brad Shoup: More R&B tone poem than proper song, Angel reworks a standard stay-true text over vari-speeded guitar arpeggiation, cod-fuzz riffs, and some genuinely chilling processed “whoa”s. One to admire for its weirdness and resolute lack of momentum, surely, but I can’t imagine texting a request.
[6]
Will Adams: The chorus is built on a lovely bed of baby drum ‘n’ bass; God knows why it was traded in favor for a muddy synth rock binge. Angel, too, misses the mark, employing a warm timbre on the chorus only to slip into a shouting match with the Rudolfian backing.
[5]
Alfred Soto: When the voice fails to compel, turn to guitar tracks.
[3]
Iain Mew: This pop R&B is making itself a fixture in the UK top 20. It’s a bit clunky (“we feel like we’re major”?), but its clunkiness is at least matched with a bit of musical imagination, Angel gets the transitions and “inhale!” exclamations just right, and the rock blow-outs impart energy without sounding too cookie-cutter. It’s the rising tide of strings at the end that takes me off the fence on the positive side, though.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: The sweeping synth-rock orchestration is lovely, and would be better served by almost anything other than the nauseating simplicities Angel mouths. The chorus in particular is more and more cringeworthy every time he repeats it, and he repeats it a lot.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: I think this song has made me realise that I kind of miss Craig David and wish he were around to do something great with this inventive mess. Angel’s good with the melody (and it’s a good melody) but when the guitars rise up, they sound good but cause him to give way to artless gulping at the words. Maybe that’s there to stop it descending into pure glurge, maybe it’s just a mistake. In any case there are enough neat sounds to make this a melange of sounds that are good in small doses, rather than a reminder of how irritating they can be when overused.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: What is this, even? Chase & Status producing One Direction, except half of them think they’re replacing Rita Ora and the other half thinks they’re covering Shaggy (one guy does both)? Chart pop’s not only out of ideas, it’s out of ways to repurpose them.
[2]