Time for some more nontroversy…
[Video]
[1.90]
Thomas Inskeep: Remember the name Seeb? He’s the guy who inflicted upon the world that remix of that horrible Mike Posner song about getting high in Ibiza. And now he’s back, and the singer from Bastille is apparently stupid enough to follow him.
[1]
Katie Gill: This is a lovely song, something that reminds me of “Things We Lost in the Fire”-era Bastille, true to form yet slightly modernized — and then that drop comes in right at the one-minute mark. Can you even call it a drop if it’s an upper? What about that godawful vocal effect? It’s amazing how it’s only January and we’ve already got a contender for the worst two seconds in 2019 pop music.
[3]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: “Grip” is so obviously a normal Bastille song that accidentally fell into a vat of EDM cliché that it’s almost cute how poorly Seeb crams the milquetoast drops in. Charming incompetence is less charming when it’s so polished, though.
[3]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: There’s a dissonance between the glimmering drop and this notion of partying all night being regrettable. This talk of wanting to forget, the devil pulling one into the dark of the night, and drinking “unholy wine” is all a bit forced, no? There’s no sense of danger or anxiety or exciting surrender to it.
[2]
Ian Mathers: I really, really didn’t need anyone to try and successfully render the concept of “turgid” into song(ish) form.
[1]
Stephen Eisermann: Bastille can’t rely on Dan to elevate these overly generic EDM tracks: they need more than just an impassioned vocal. The biggest difference on “Grip” is the producer they’re working with, but that isn’t enough to make this song stand out in a pretty similar-sounding catalog.
[3]
Alfred Soto: The unpleasantness of concluding this is Coldplay angst with drum machines, complete with cracked notes, pushes me against the wall.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: I know I’m a broken record on this, but it’s a continual frustration that women’s vocals are regularly scrutinized to mock, while the guy from Bastille’s right here with this oversung, overquirked, and overprocessed take, the vocal equivalent of those ’70s salmon-mayo purees molded into salmon shape. Bastille and Seeb played themselves — the idea, I think, was to provide a big memorable vocal to distinguish an otherwise nondescript EDM track, but even the most bizarre male vocals code as unmarked and unremarkable, so the song ends up sounding generic after all.
[2]
Iris Xie: This still sounds like “The Fox.” Actually, that’s an insult — “The Fox” is a better built song. But this song is the equivalent to going through old iCloud photos from 2013.
[1]
Nicholas Donohoue: “We don’t know what’s good for us, cause if we did we might not do it” is an incredible admission about releasing this song.
[1]