A little faint, a little sad…
[Video]
[6.40]
Megan Harrington: Often, I find that break up songs communicate sadness effectively, but not the loss of closeness, the strange severing like losing a part of yourself that you weren’t ever quite sure existed. “The Fall” is terminal, a reckoning, but it’s also tactile. When love slips away in “The Fall” you can feel your grasp loosening; you can feel sensation leaving your fingertips. You can feel that person walking away, and the distance is a weight on your chest that gets heavier and heavier and heavier. In this mix of dark feelings, both physical and emotional, Petite Noir also locates a beating heart. “The Fall” is by turns romantic and affectionate. It’s a touch that pulls closer even as it’s letting go.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: You know all that alt-R&B that suffers from being overly smooth? This suffers from the opposite.
[3]
Alfred Soto: “Don’t tell me it’s all right,” he sings in an anguished voice reminiscent of Tunde Adebimpe over spare electrobeats that fans of the new Jeremih might appreciate.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: This is so cooler-than-cool ’82 new wave that I can hardly stand it: not creamy but icy, with a little bit of brittle highlife guitar at its end, and incredibly (well-)mannered vocals. Someone’s been listening to Ultravox.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: I guess having a new Kwes come along every few years is more or less the same as having just one, but with a proper pop career.
[8]
Crystal Leww: Petite Noir is patient — there is a luxurious build to that chorus, and when it arrives, it feels like a wave of emotion. I appreciate that he doesn’t take his track back to square one either, letting himself sit in the messy emotions and quicker vocal pacing that he let spill out in the chorus. Other soulful, thick voiced dudes like Sampha sometimes have a hard time carrying themselves through a whole song because it’s too same-y, but thankfully, “The Fall” moves enough even within itself.
[6]
Brad Shoup: He’s got nothing to prop himself on, but he’s crawling like that pealing guitar was there the whole time. Pooling the vocals saps voltage from the main line; the sludge is definitely moving uphill, but it doesn’t get there. The guitar beats him to it.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: “And when the night…” goes the chorus, and that moment is as deep as desire often is and throbs with the possibilities of satiation. But the song too often sounds like it barely can be heard while it sinks in quicksand.
[6]
Madeleine Lee: I’ve loved a lot of songs this year that rush at you like a wall of water, unexpected, unstoppable and total, hitting you with a full-on onslaught of sounds and layers. I’ve loved them, but they’re often clumsy. “The Fall” gives the same effect but executed in a more subtle, controlled way: like water is gradually filling the room, rising and accumulating more and more until you’re submerged.
[9]
Patrick St. Michel: It’s a song consumed by unease, to the point it starts coming undone. It isn’t always heart-racing, but ultimately packs a lot of tension in and manages to find a way to let some sun in come the end.
[6]