Sean Day wraps up with Sean the Soup Dragon. I would say maybe the problem with all these Seans is the spelling, but…
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Thomas Inskeep: A gospel-inflected pop-house single with a rousing vocal from Crystal Waters, interpolating “Take Me to the River” on the chorus? PREACH!
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David Sheffieck: This is super cheesy and also super irresistible, Crystal Waters delivering with a textbook-perfect house vocal and Hifi Sean living up to his corny name with a track that’s half Sesame Street and half peak Fatboy Slim. The “Take Me to the River” interpolation is definitely not what I expected going in, but like everything else here it works on sheer upbeat earnestness.
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Micha Cavaseno: Hifi Sean’s simplistic reduction of gospel/soul into a plausible bait house palette is pretty basic, to the point you’d wished he’d had the sense to flesh it out beyond its basicness into a full pop song if he was going to listen to his desire for cheese to “Lean on Me” for the duration of Testify. The inevitable dip into the acid section as a tasteful old-school dance break is also really unrewarding; yes, it’s a contrast but it could use so much more to really enhance that divide. That said, Crystal Waters is a legend, and the idea that she have a sound that implies her legacy is more than appropriate no matter how eye-rolling making her a Soul Soldier to convey her storied career might be.
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Alfred Soto: Crystal Waters sounds excellent — that familiar chalky voice has lost none of its power to create euphoria, so, yeah, you can say she made me a believer. The rolling piano lines have that Rockafeller in their skank, but the beats reify gospel fevor and house abandon into a Christmas pageant blandness.
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Iain Mew: For the most part Hifi Sean manages to provide a blank platform for a fine vocal, but the flapping mouth of a bassline and the deeply unsatisfying fade out both fail at even that. The contrast to Crystal Waters’ power and dignity is almost comic.
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Will Adams: I can’t say for certain whether this sort of earnest pop-house has been ruined by Galantis, but I can say for certain that “Take Me to the River” was definitely ruined by Big Mouth Billy Bass.
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