Unperfect, but certainly Unbad…
[Video]
[6.12]
Pedro João Santos: Whereas “Gots to Give the Girl” was charming but insubstantial, this is a much frailer statement from a group that shouldn’t be treading shaky ground on just their second release. Xenomania’s circular, impersonal production suggests cold feet regarding the budding girls’ sound, disregarding the continuity — a nexus that only pops up once in their Yeah, Why Not EP, during “Rope” — that is required for building an identity and individual/combined talents on a somewhat pivotal moment. Circular, faceless faux-Ibiza really can only dissolve you into fodder for Ministry of Sound summer compilations — those have long bitten the dust; hopefully for Unperfect, “Looking for a Hug”, which isn’t exactly vying for longevity either, this might be a fluke.
[3]
Alfred Soto: The instrumental filigrees are the stars of this Xenomania production: the unexpected harshness of the strums, the pop reifying of Herbie Hancock keyboard textures from 1975, the unrelenting percussion. More blank than frank, all the better for it.
[7]
Ian Mathers: The energy, and energy level, is quite different between this and “Gots to Give the Girl”, but there’s something between them that feels like they’re taking the same (so far, very successful!) approach: precisely calibrated/crafted, loop-based production that makes these songs swirling whirlpools with an inexorable tug. Given that the production on these songs is more interesting on its own than a lot of their peers’ material, it’d be easy for any singer (let alone four) to either overwhelming it to the song’s detriment or pale in comparison. Instead all of them manage the difficult task of meshing in with the song while still seeming like actual people with actual personalities, and furthermore making it look easy. In both videos we’ve covered so far, note how all of them seem at times to be as much singing along to the songs as singing them, which if it was just slightly off could read as disengagement but instead comes off as a real power move. Anyway, any chance we could get an album soon?
[9]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Finally! Proof that I won’t love every up-tempo pop song with needlepoint guitars.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: My 2019 Xenomania banger of choice (a phrase I wouldn’t have expected to type, oh, three years ago or so) is Paige Cavell’s “Predators and Monsters,” but the guitar hook on “Looking for a Hug” is very much on that level. Too bad the song doesn’t either commit to that, or commit to the languid meandering that “Gots to Give the Girl” did.
[6]
Iris Xie: The title is deceptive, because it’s not that they’re looking for a hug, it’s that you are looking for a hug. This attitude towards being carefree about being an object of desire and acting on their ability to elicit said feelings matches the windy and almost careless way the rest of the production moves. It’s the less sophisticated and splashy big sister to Simmy’s “Umahlalela,” but like an awkward adolescent on the verge of greater maturity, “Looking for a Hug” has its own charm. The fiddly, twitchy synth after the initial verse matches the coyness of their words, which belie the tension present if the boy were to really follow their lead. The chorus turns on the verses before and asserts a dignified stance, with the way that ‘shut it down’ bounces off before the next few bars in such a modestly unhinged manner, and how the outro switches around between “I walk and run in my shoes, boy” and “shut it down” before ending in a sunny guitar melody that recalls their debut single, “Gots to Give the Girl.” The breezy attitude is a lower-key version of Betta Lemme’s “Play,” the sticky bouncy synths and disparate but continuing song arrangement are reminiscent of Perfume’s “Hurly Burly”, while the movement, lyric content, and motif make me think how it is a narrative twist on one of my favorite f(x) songs, “Step.” So, watch her move, all the while she is watching you.
[7]
Will Adams: While the lack of clear pop structure on “Gots to Give the Girl” turned out to be its most appealing quality, on “Looking For a Hug” it works to its detriment. The guitar-based house groove provides an excellent base, but it goes nowhere, looping its sections with little development until the very end, by which point I’ve checked out.
[5]
Vikram Joseph: Sounding more like Roisin Murphy’s recent singles than anything by the pop acts that spawned Unperfect, the sticky disco of “Looking For A Hug” shimmers on the horizon like the mirage of water on tarmac. It’s pleasant and tingly like a faint breeze on a sweltering day; heard in Doppler effect from the window of a passing car on a city street, it might even sound fleetingly sensational.
[7]