Just call them [5]DCC, Patrick!
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[6.00]
Alfred Soto: The Fray given the bubble-EDM treatment.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Like a wintry, nursery-rhyme version of “Time of Your Life” or “Dancing on My Own” as a cheery kiss-off, and either as forgettable as they claim or deceptively catchy. You decide.
[6]
Anthony Easton: A lovely and quite pleasantly-constructed pop song with lyrics about the usual things — it vaguely reminds me of a dozen bands which have little in common (Vampire Weekend, Belle and Sebastian, New Pornographers etc.), which suggests that a kind of anonymity permeates.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: With a little help from Madeon, Two Door Cinema Club have their best single, and their first to breach the UK top 40. His touches seem pretty clear, expanding on the band’s synthier tendencies to leave them resembling something like the Midnight Juggernauts, and with the best coda this side of “The Wire.” Lyrically, the classic conceit of singing a song to prove you’ve moved on meets with the twist that an offer of reconciliation serves as the first real confirmation of things even being over. It’s a bit of a complex notion to get over in a song, but they manage it.
[8]
Will Adams: This is not much more than just Madeon respraying a pre-existing Two Door Cinema Club song, but his subtle additions (those glossy synths and that snare preset give him away) are a natural fit for Two Door Cinema Club’s already danceable alt-rock. Additionally, these flourishes only emphasize the way Alex Trimble’s vocal can obscure the sharp blow of a line like, “I don’t love you anymore.” That it sounds so triumphant leads me to believe this is less an angry SMS and more an internal monologue, which makes it all the more endearing.
[7]
Brad Shoup: This is best-case Death Cab For Cutie, where everyone has something to do and the vocal melody pushes on to the cliff. One guitar squalls like an unminded puppy; the other putters around. While it’s dangerous to lyrically invoke any seasons but nuclear, if 2DCC talked about winter I couldn’t even hear it.
[7]
Juana Giaimo: I should stop listening to this song before it’s too late and I can’t get it out of my head. It’s true that the beats are a little bit boring and that the synths don’t always work well as a backup for the voice, not to mention that I find the ending (with the distortion of the last “anymore”) completely annoying. But the vocal melody is so addictive that I forgive all the downsides.
[7]
Madeleine Lee: Not warm enough to be sympathetic, not cold enough to be intriguing, and not strong enough to be convincing despite that.
[4]
Patrick St. Michel: Two Door Cinema Club might be the ultimate [5] band in existence.
[5]