“Though it is currently untitled, the project was produced by Ryan Tedder and has been teased as being a risk-taking project unlike anything the singer has previously released.”

[Video]
[5.30]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: A disco-pop, key-changing, “Edge of Seventeen”-nodding chimera that doesn’t manage to be spoiled by Jessie J’s incapacity to be at less than 200%. In a parallel universe, this is a What’s Your Pleasure? Jessie Ware track, and it’s a [9]. 
[5]

Leah Isobel: A textured, disco-inspired stomper is a good fit for any British Jessie, whether J or Ware, and it helps that the former is tempering her performance here to the point that she sounds a little like the latter. Still, this lacks something in the way of subtlety – the hammy outro lets all the song’s tension go slack – and the title is sung way too many times. Don’t just tell me over and over that you want love, show me.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Wanting love is a very easy thing. We all want love in any form it might take, especially if it’s easy and quickly offered. But the love you need is never wanted. It slides in like a blade between your ribs. And for Jessie to say it so earnestly, leapfrogging the chords and disco drums, with the key change — that hits like a sledgehammer to your neck. Subtlety is not the watchword here. The love you need is already drawing blood from your chest, and it’s time to thump it to the breakdown.
[6]

Oliver Maier: You almost have to admire that Jessie J and co. have made zero concessions to the mellow state of pop, opting instead for something characteristically big and shouty. Problem is it’s, horrible to listen to. “I Want Love” apes about 20 other songs yet is so featureless as to exist in relation to itself only. Rarely has a key change felt less earned.
[2]

Iris Xie: It’s like a remake of CHIC featuring Niles Rodgers – “I Want Your Love”, but with a galloping ABBA instrumental and way more tortured. But it’s missing some fun — it’s a bit too fast and urgent for the listener to really take in its emotions. “I Want Love” sounds more like a perfunctory song in a forgotten musical, right before the too-quick resolution in the last ten minutes.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: The lyric “Breaking all our New Years’ resolutions” is Lyttle Lytton levels of wrong: metrically clunky, not even slightly debauched yet convinced it is, just an absolutely inexplicable thing to put in a serious or even campy song. (Also: It’s summer! That’s pretty good as resolution-keeping goes!) I actually belly-laughed when I heard it — which, it turns out, happens quite a lot here. But give Jessie J Inc. this: I didn’t expect that to be what spoils “I Want Love” and not Ryan Tedder’s production — a huge level up for him, and a near-perfect pastiche of disco strings, the “Running Up That Hill” gallop, a key change that’s gourmet cheese, and the general dancepop desperation (a compliment) of Sandra’s “I Need Love.” Nor do Jessie’s vocals, while extremely… herself, ruin this; the belting suits the material. She attacks “I Want Love” with all the fevered virtuosity of a top-three American Idol contestant who knows she’s against two guys with acoustic guitars. (Which is sometimes what the UK charts feel like.)
[6]

Vikram Joseph: “Breaking all our New Year’s resolutions” is a weird one — does the night that Jessie’s craving with a sexy stranger involve eating loads of crisps, cancelling their gym memberships and reactivating her social media accounts? At least it stands out as a rare moment of personality in this slick, streamlined, highly competent and strangely joyless disco pastiche.
[5]

Alfred Soto: To quote Tony Curtis’ Sydney Falco from Sweet Smell of Success: if this is crazy, I’m a pretzel.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: This song is the very essence of the 💯 emoji in a lot of ways, though I wouldn’t stretch to 🔥. It’s so enormous, both in sound and performance, and so earnest that keeping that chorus going without it sounding silly by the end is the sort of intensely difficult high-wire act few can pull off. Really, Jessie J doesn’t, but I’m inflating the score just because of the difficulty.
[7]

Mark Sinker: The set of her chin always reminds me of the mom in Gremlins grimly mounting the stairs to do battle, carving knife in hand — and so does this song. Jessie wants love, she’ll win it (no quarter), and the romance will end in a blender.
[7]

We got our peaches out in Adelaide…

[Video]
[6.50]

Alfred Soto: It begins well: a worry her doctor’ll assume she’s day drinking again. Then the distortions, rhythm guitar licks, and yelped vocals make appearances. Someone’s trying to make a statement About These Times by hoping too many production choices will appeal to as many Spotify listeners as possible.
[4]

Will Adams: The track sparkles as any throwback synthpop should — I’m reminded of last year’s Kiesza album — but it’s not enough to salvage the lyric, which completely overdoses overdoes it with the health/sickness metaphors. Alcohol! Meds! Drugs! Narcissism! Hole in a solar plexus! (???) And, finally, the word “symptomatic,” which — after reading on a near-daily basis for the past year during the still-not-over pandemic — is not really what I want to hear right now.
[5]

Ian Mathers: It does make a certain kind of sense that a song about being a mess (and/or feeling like you’re a mess) is, lyrically, more than a bit of a mess. It’s also one of the only songs I can think of that addresses psychiatric meds with this level of bluntness and nuance simultaneously (the other one that comes to mind is The National’s “Graceless”), and even if I’m kind of squinting my eyes trying to parse how exactly “it’s all just symptomatic” cashes out here, I do keep getting the bit where her doctor is trying to talk to her stuck in my head.
[7]

Michael Hong: Peach PRC knows she’s being hedonistic, spilling a story of narcissism and indulgence under the rosy production of its verses. But “Symptomatic” never quite fulfills its promises, always too restrained, needing a chorus that joins in the pleasure instead of sinking into a narcotic haze.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Peach PRC’s soft, pleasant voice is far more muted and keening over the warm washed out synths and heavy handed kicks and baseball snares than it is over the glittery guitar, so when the chorus slams down, the vocal processing smudges her voice to the back of the mix, nearly swallowing it until the mix opens up, her voice brightened, then she disappears.
[7]

Vikram Joseph: One of those pop songs that just feels effortlessly great. Peach PRC’s vocals seem to hang from the rafters and swing through the room on invisible ropes; the synths fizz and foam like surf on a rocky beach, belying the song’s tricky themes. When you look past the giddy joy of the music, “Symptomatic” is one of the wittier, more thoughtful handlings of mental health in pop music I’ve heard lately. Through the eyes and wisdom of her psychiatrist (who Peach reckons, in a Fleabag-ish aside to camera, actually kinda likes her), we see her coming to terms with the fact that recovery is slow and non-linear (“Don’t throw out your meds cos you had a good day”). And when she tells us “I guess I’m crazy,” it doesn’t feel reductive in the way that, say, Ava Max comes across. It’s a glorious, summery bop that works on two distinct but inseparable levels.
[9]

Jeffrey Brister: Oh man, I’ve got another song to add to the Sadsack Summer Jam playlist, right after Merchandise’s “Time” and Motion City Soundtrack’s “Everything Is Alright”. “Symptomatic” cuts pretty close to the bone, its lyrics about self-destruction after a good day describing my past more often than I’d like. But it goes down really easy because it’s just fucking good. The sun-drenched lite-hyperpop production, Peach PRC’s successful Katy Perry affectation, the bouncy melody — I’m just in love.
[8]

Iris Xie: It’s been a long while since I’ve written for TSJ, but this is an extremely hilarious song to come back to at this point in my life, if only because it seems to combine this perfect nexus of mental health, bisexuality, and familiar pop music. The frazzled synths sound like Carly Rae on a come-down, and the tone is as lifting and sweet as any Taeyeon or IU solo, but Peach PRC does a successful job of pointing fun at her bisexual mess of a self, which I, also as a fellow bisexual, cringe at but only in recognition and laughter of a previous self gone by. There are many winning lines here, but “Think amphetamines are the only crystal that’d help,” is a clever play on the reality that one is prescribed chemicals in either form, crystal healing or “crystal healing.” Coming to terms with diagnosis puts you squarely in the box of chaos, where basically you decide whether you feel better. But what does that mean? Does that mean you continue the medications? How much does the psychiatrist trust you? Maybe you really are or are not okay. It ends up being an opaque kaleidoscope of observations, and we build a sense of trust with Peach PRC when she sings “The doctor says I’m manic. I think I’m manic.” I’ve had those moments too (well, hypomania) but it’s funny how coming to terms with when you’re the most de-realized is when you’re probably the most grounded and can start walking back to the place you need to be. Symptomatic, indeed, but at least you know where you are now, and no longer need peach colored glasses.
[7]

If this pattern holds, in about 20 years we’ll get an “In Da Getto” remake with different slightly altered vowels…

[Video]
[4.62]

Thomas Inskeep: Nothing against producers Skrillex and Tainy, but it’s David Morales and the Bad Yard Club’s 1993 house classic of the almost-same name that does the heavy lifting here, as it’s lifted almost completely wholesale. J Balvin raps a bit over the track, but honestly doesn’t add much of anything. You’re better off going back to the bangin’ original.
[4]

Will Adams: An uncomplicated song; Skrillex and Tainy do a quick remake of David Morales’ “In De Ghetto” and add in some J Balvin verses. Delta Bennett’s original hook remains the highlight, while J Balvin sits on cruise control. “Uncomplicated” could be a nicer way of saying “uninspired”, but since childhood I’ve had an affinity for house organ and Jock Jams CDs, so my foot was tapping.
[6]

Iris Xie: What’s that one song they play before NBA basketball games, or in Space Jam? The one with the very wonky synth? This seems like a weirdly watered-down version of it, or trying to not copy *the* hype song. If you’re going to try to not copy a hype song… make your own? But still, I don’t know if I can write a better comment than the one I found on YT: “Deberían de meter esta canción en FIFA 22!!” or “They should put this song in FIFA 22 !!”
[4]

Oliver Maier: J Balvin’s usual reggaeton through bloodshot hip-house eyes, maybe a little grime in there too — Skrillex and Tainy’s donk-centric production recalls the ruthless, self-insistent banger philosophy of Dizzee Rascal. J Balvin is solid but too terminally cool to really sell the mania; the more expressive Bad Bunny would’ve been my choice.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: J. Balvin rapping over reggaeton/garage made by Tainy and Skrillex is much better than I initially thought! Unfortunately, what I initially thought it would sound like is trash.
[5]

Tim de Reuse: Whoa, Skrillex! You’re still kickin’ around, huh? Well, he could’ve fooled me – other than the slightly-angrier-than-usual production on that kick drum there isn’t a trace of him here; besides, given how inexplicably dry everything is, I would sooner have attributed the instrumental to a demo track included in an off-brand budget DAW. J Balvin does his best to inject some energy into it but no amount of charisma can finish a track that isn’t finished.
[3]

Juana Giaimo: I think J. Balvin has released some of the most important music of last decade, but lately it seems that he has given everything he had to give. This is a great example: “In Da Getto” would have been much better without him. Skrillex did a great job in doing an explosive track. It’s short and intense, so I appreciate the spaces he left for the track to breathe. Meanwhile, J. Balvin is just there mumbling words without any kind of flow and that don’t make much sense. I can’t avoid thinking this was a missed opportunity for a great song.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Too short for revulsion, too long for this level of annoyance.
[3]

Pöst Malöne…

[Video]
[3.14]

Nortey Dowuona: OK. I’m about to hear Posty actually rap. Here we go. [listens] Well, it’s nice to know that Whole Lotta Red will actually be influential. Unfortunately, since the writing on that album wasn’t very good, the only interesting part of it was the vocal madness. That can easily be copied. Look at all the Young Thug children racking up Eminem kid collabs and Internet Millions. But Posty deciding to pull out the Vocal Fry since there is very little “there” there is not surprising, it’s just disappointing that most folks will immediately call it innovative and game changing when PEACE and Self Jupiter did all this but better and better written back before any of us were born. BTW, Posty needs to go do indie rock like he was supposed to and stop glomming off rap’s cool if he thinks it’s so shallow. Get your friendly ass on.
[0]

Ian Mathers: Oh, he’s still rapping? Cool, cool. Nah, no big plans, pretty quiet weekend. Kind of need it. You?
[3]

Alfred Soto: Something’s got him excited: he’s given up pronouncing vowels in the expected places. The aqueous production suggests depths he cheerfully won’t plumb.
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Dully pounding and without substance, not unlike water dripping from a rusty faucet. The horrid rapping on “Motley Crew” makes me miss pop-rock Post Malone, something that I didn’t know was possible. 
[3]

Oliver Maier: You would be forgiven for balking at the idea of Post Malone trying to imitate Playboi Carti (I believe the academic term is “Keefkaesque.”) Truth is, it’s fine, “weird” in a stiff sort of way but perfectly digestible. Extra credit awarded for “Where is my roof? Mysterious.”
[6]

Andrew Karpan: Heavy is the crown that Posty wears, the last serious American pop artist to straddle the line between classic rock and its post-rawk future. Yet his interest in retro-vampirism carries a lack of refinement or effort that’s ultimately essential to how it works. The careers of far superior rappers are littered with unlistenable guitar fare, but who didn’t have the canniness to accomplish the same effect by burying a Tommy Lee drum workout or just naming a hard rap record “Motley Crew.” The bars and delivery of the aforementioned are less exciting — the switched up flow is less interesting the more you think about it and brings to mind only mixtape Drake: the reminder that pure range is no replacement for an idea. 
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: If you’re going to name your single “Motley Crew,” and you have more tats than Mötley Crüe’s four members combined, shouldn’t said single bear at least a passing resemblance to the hair metal gods? Shouldn’t it have at least a little of their DNA? But instead, alas, Posty proves yet again how empty his “talent” is, releasing instead a trap-pop record Auto-Tuned into oblivion. This doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. Not one.
[0]

No. Only we may dance.

[Video]
[2.71]

Juana Giaimo: Sorry, I can only enjoy two generic feel-good singles from BTS. A third was completely unnecessary. 
[5]

Dede Akolo: I’m staring into the void and contemplating how we have let Ed Sheeran get away with such heinous crimes against music.
[1]

Alfred Soto: The brightest tune Ed Sheeran’s written, “Permission to Dance” has a courtly attitude, the sort of tune carved from decades of pop culture ideas about high school dances. So insouciant about proffering platitudes over stop-start dynamics that I want Sheeran and his writers to compile them, Yoko-esque, into a mass market Grapefruit.
[6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Over-enthusiastically saccharine and awkward feeling, not unlike a school dance chaperone who might tell you to have fun, and then hover uncomfortably over you. 
[3]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: “Permission to Dance” sounds like a Disney Channel end credits song with all the fun and life sucked out of it. How lamentable that Western commercial success has brought the formerly creatively unique and truly vital BTS to such straits. 
[0]

Michael Hong: On last year’s “Black Swan,” BTS asked “what happens if I can no longer create as me?” The stirring and claustrophobic art-film suggested that they’d hold their artistic pursuits above everything, but their recent string of singles seems to suggest they’d rather cash in on soulless back-to-school COVID commercial jingles.
[1]

Thomas Inskeep: Probably should’ve asked permission before going with something this unoriginal and unexciting.
[3]

We’ve Fylde our reviews and hope they’re illuminating…

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Thomas Inskeep: “Where the hell are my friends?” goes the refrain of this not-quite-ode to returning to your hometown after an extended absence. I can hear and appreciate the emotion in Rae Morris’s voice, but Soph Aspin’s rap doesn’t add a lot, and overall I want more energy from this, more thrust.
[4]

Vikram Joseph: As Conor Oberst so succinctly put it, “I feel more like a stranger each time I come home.” Of course, home is a moveable feast, the concept of which gets warped the longer you live away from the place(s) you grew up, and that barbed blend of disconnect and nostalgia so many of us have for our hometowns is fertile creative ground. Rae Morris takes us back to Black(pool), and “Fish n Chips” captures a certain kind of damp, dismal whimsy specific to those British seaside towns that they forgot to close down. Unfortunately, it also encapsulates the spirit of those places by being a bit chintzy and disappointing — Morris doesn’t offer much in the way of emotional insight beyond “has this place changed or have I?”, and Soph Aspin’s cameo is more than a little bit grating. Like an unfinished pier, this is a nice concept, poorly executed.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Whether it be their home, holiday destination or place to point and stare at, Blackpool has a powerful pull for a large part of England. Nowhere is more associated with the seaside experience: the bucket and spade and the deprivation. It’s the kind of place that lends itself to complicated returns; delusions of coming back as the main character. “Fish n Chips” knows this all too well. As the major-label popstar outlines her oblivious dreams of amber-preserved teenagers in long-shut clubs, like The Risen from In The Flesh, it is a delight when they give way to a quite cutting rejoinder from the voice of truth. Soph Aspin was not so long ago made an object of curiosity by London Media Types, but here she gets to frame herself and much of the song — she is central, and so is Blackpool. Rae Morris has foregrounded the place before — how the world-conquering “Someone Out There” was not actually world-conquering is a mystery — but this conflicted, self-deprecating dialogue is the most thoughtful and heartwarming instance of that yet.
[8]

Claire Biddles: I just can’t get past that opening plaintive croon of the title — like a mediocre parody that is almost as cringeworthy as the earnest homecoming slow jam it’s aping. Theoretically I’m into the sporadic, almost proggy slip-slides throughout the song, but in reality it’s half-arsed sonic attention seeking. Soph Aspin’s rap is mortifying. Rae please do better I know you can!
[2]

Oliver Maier: It’s hard to articulate what exactly I hate so very much about this, possibly because it feels like the accumulation of lots of very specific details rather than a single overarching failure. Here are some of those details: 1) pretty much everything about Morris’ vocal performance irritates me 2) the lyrics, amateurishly bland even by the standards of a tedious concept 3) wHeRe ThE hElL aRe My FrIeEeEeEeNdS 4) the key changes, which if I am being generous I suppose could signify feeling unmoored, but in the context of a song that I listen to with my ears sound bad 5) Soph Aspin’s pitiful guest verse (“And they’re in the clubs, They’re on the beach / Sat by the sand and the sea / And they’re in the town, they’re in the park” — bracing stuff). If I can identify a larger structural issue it’s that “Fish n Chips” is at once totally humourless and packed with production choices that sound goofy in context; I feel like I’m being custard pied while watching a GCSE art student’s very sad, very earnest, not very good short film. Why the autotune? Why this whimsical beat? (It is admittedly not their fault that it reminds me of the silliest Brockhampton song). Why the chipmunked outro? There are worse songs out there, but few that sound as genuinely unfit for release as “Fish n Chips”. I don’t mean that as a snide, non-specific drag; I mean it in the sense that there are about two good ideas here that should have been extracted and used for other things entirely, rather than in service of this half-baked rubbish.
[1]

Leah Isobel: Rae’s voice has a yelpy innocence that works really well here, and the way the line “where the hell are my friends?” barrels in like an intrusive thought is fun. It gets less fun with repetition, and maybe that’s intentional. It also feels a little lazy. Soph Aspin’s verse, a little unremarkable on its own, brings enough of an energy shift that the song works; and the playfully wonky key change on the outro elevates the whole situation. What an odd assemblage of parts.
[7]

Ian Mathers: The little “where the hell are my friends” bit and the production pretty much work, and it takes Aspin coming in to confirm that they work a lot better with a rapper than with the rest of this song. Feels like it needs a remix/refocus and/or more rappers?
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: The loping synths look at Rae’s soft, lilting voice, lifted by the pulsing bass and shimmering synths above swooning strings and bouncy, concave drums, with another synth sweeping in as Soph steps in, gently piecing together the life that’s long past Rae. Soph still has a few lingering strings, and as Rae melts with the rain, the entire mix smushes, turns inside out and fades away.
[6]

Mark Sinker: Don’t like to damn a song for a cheap crappy video really, and should note that when I was only half-listening while doing other things I was enjoying this, for the sound of her voice and the structure supporting it, and the snide edge to Soph’s rap also. But the self-regard just doesn’t survive closer attention and the rushed little rhythm spurts feel like overlooked blunders. Plus why is the treble clef at the start centred on B rather G? OK that’s the most trivial issue possible but detail matters! 
[4]

Juana Giaimo: I generally don’t create expectations for follow-ups, but Someone Out There was such an underestimated album that I always expected Rae Morris’ next would be a pop explosion that would put all eyes on her. Maybe it could have been if we hadn’t gone through a (surprise!) pandemic in the last year and a half. Now that she finally comes back with a new song, it’s far away from my expectations. “Fish n Chips” is one of the most desolating songs I’ve heard in a while. From the first seconds she puts us in this lonely mood: the ambient rain, her pensive tone and those slightly eerie backing vocals that repeat those lyrics that probably many of us have thought a lot in these times. “Where the hell are my friends?”, why am I not sending a message to see how they’re doing? Why aren’t they talking to me? Are they mad at me? Do they miss me? Do I miss them or could I live in quarantine for the rest of my life? Maybe I could… When Soph Aspin’s rap comes in, she sounds like the unbearable voice of conscience that we want to shut up and leaves us feeling even lonelier than before.
[7]

Alfred Soto: “Where the hell are my friends?” could be a Pet Shop Boys refrain, but the execution is so lifeless I wonder why they wonder.
[5]

But how is it when we’re blurbing?

[Video]
[4.43]

Andrew Karpan: A mournful non-banger around which hangs the stink of its impotence. The general project of Joel Little’s records — shimmering and slight, and ultimately comfortable in their sadness — collapses here into the awkwardness of discomfort, though for these exact reasons I could imagine this suitably soundtracking a particularly unhappy party on HBO’s Euphoria. But it’s a poor fit for McRae, whose voice oscillates throughout in her understandably desperate efforts to take the song seriously. I tried too. By the time Khalid shows up, we understand that this is meant as a kind of warning.
[2]

Ian Mathers: It probably says something that I felt the need to go look up the lyrics and double check this, but as far as I can tell this is a breakup duet where neither party feels the need to run down anyone involved. Nobody’s doing anything wrong, there isn’t even necessarily a lack of affection (“still got a thing for you”), it’s not even circumstantial (“the time is right, we just don’t work”), the closest thing to a reason is the general malaise of adult life (“I haven’t been serious since high school”, not having good conversations anymore, the repeated reminders that when they’re at work they miss the other, it’s being together in person that isn’t sitting right). Hell, the most vehement stance here seems to be that leading on someone else is the wrong thing to do. There’s no recrimination or defensiveness, because sometimes this is just the way it goes. But it’s one thing to be relatable, or even laudable. Those qualities would be notable even in a song with half the sneaky charm of “Working”. It’s the kind of sad banger where both the sad and banger parts are relatively subtle; it actually helps that both vocalists give performances of such surface diffidence that it can blur “when I’m working” and “we ain’t working” together. It’s not working, but they work well together, and the result can hit surprisingly hard, even if you haven’t been in this kind of spot for years.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: The music is nothing, and the wordplay isn’t nearly as clever as they think it is. You can almost reconstruct the writing process: Sarah Aarons and/or Joel Little jotting down “when I’m working / but I’m not working,” high-fiving over the double meaning until realizing it doesn’t actually make sense, realizing the “we” version is even worse, then going with the clunky compromise. But the lyrics do get one thing right: McRae and Khalid’s voices do not, in fact, work together.
[2]

Alfred Soto: This is a song? Oh, sure, a “song,” theoretical perhaps. To claim Khalid and Tate McRae don’t mesh is to propose each had heard the other in any context.
[3]

Austin Nguyen: A break-up song built around a pun with the same dad-joke wit and 9-to-5 mentality of “working hard or hardly working?”. This, apparently, is Tate McRae and Khalid’s idea of a “summer jam”, as stated in the video description, but “working” is more ennui than anything else — the bored clap-and-snap hand games played while waiting in line for an overpriced amusement park ride, staccato blacktop-synth simmer seen with vacant eyes, camp cheer-alongs for the bus ride back home. As with McRae’s perception of love, an idea best left to the imagination.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: The rally synths and rakish guitars tautly hung from the snaps and bounced by the bass kicks allow Tate to stroll across, a leg or knee turning to fog as she struggles across. Khalid floats over it comfortably, uninterested in walking that rope, instead circling and binding it, allowing Tate to limp across further, the chattering echoes no longer lurking but lopsidedly following as he gently supports her to the end. Gently, they begin to float without their legs to a Wendy’s.
[6]

Dede Akolo: The dreamy cinematography of this video and the presence of two young boys only enhances the banal quality of the song. It works. The synth sounds like a character-hopping-in-a-video-game type beat. Ultimately, this is the Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, SZA-fication of every upcoming pop singer nowadays. Tate McRae’s vocal tone and articulation sound like everyone else out there and while I’ll bop to this song in the line at Forever 21 in 2016 and possibly “Shazam” it, I won’t ever look back at it again. 
[6]

No nominative determinism here.

[Video]
[6.67]

John Pinto: Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk continue their 25+ year war on your volume knob. I still prefer their more narrative turns to the near-platitudes of “Days Like These,” but those blown-apart truisms are a good match for starkly compressed vocals and wildly clipping synths. Makes me feel like I’m being terrorized by a faulty in-ceiling speaker system at a Great Clips.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: The powerful voices of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker rattle out the speakers, minted by synths, then fade, allowing the synth clouds to roll in, a delicate guitar plays, then Alan and Mimi roar in, bathed in cloudy synths, loping bass and crumbling white noise, that fades once more as the synths hover and a hidden kick drum lopes below the River of synth bass, Alan and Mimi softly interjecting. A lithe synth line shimmers through the clouds, opening up the sky and spreading the dimming sunlight on the river of bass and the hidden kick pulsing below. Alan and Mimi gently intone from the heavens.
[10]

Jeffrey Brister: I already knew this was going to score above [6] from the intro’s dense harmonies alone. And then it breaks in an even weirder, even more transcendent direction by adding that crushing compression that makes it feel like Sleigh Bells doing gospel. The back half lost me by being too aimless, but that first half. What a thing to behold.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Messy, smeared, unfocused, not what I expected from Low, and not what I wanted, either. Kind of actively off-putting.
[2]

Dorian Sinclair: The first ten seconds of “Days Like These” introduce a melodic theme that I hope you like! Because you will hear it an additional nine times over the next two minutes, with essentially no variation. The production changes, but not enough to prevent the essential same-iness of the melodic figure from becoming overwhelming. At that two-minute mark, the band abruptly shifts to a somewhat more interesting ambient and exploratory mode, but again one that dramatically overstays its welcome — it’s another three and a half minutes before the song actually ends, with little to justify its duration. If the intro were about a quarter as long as it, and the second section maybe half its current length, “Days Like These” could be quite interesting; as it is, it collapses under the weight of repetition.
[3]

Ian Mathers: It’s worth pointing out that Low have literally been making (excellent) music for longer than a decent proportion of the people who currently appear on the Jukebox have been alive. Given the labels etc. they’ve worked with I doubt anyone ever told them to get back in the studio and go write a single or something, but even if someone did they’re long past the point of listening. So they know exactly what they’re doing, and the wildly successful experimentation of 2018’s Double Negative no doubt only reinforced the lesson that you might as well follow your muse. It’s entirely possible that, as with Double Negative, “Days Like These” will prove to be one of the less direct tracks on HEY WHAT (hell, the last time they led with the likes of “Dancing and Blood” when everyone knows “Poor Sucker” had a much better shot at the Hot 100). It certainly confirms that the band and producer BJ Burton (who also worked on the last two albums) are continuing to take these songs and see just how productively noise and the studio can beat the hell out of them. One possible difference for those who’ve followed Low’s pandemic shows (incomplete listing here, they’re still intermittently going) is that this time we’ve had the chance to hear the songs performed more straightforwardly live before hearing what happens to them, and the result is maybe even more striking. I certainly knew the first half of “Days Like These” was powerfully declamatory, but even after Double Negative I didn’t quite foresee its surges being crushed into radiance in quite this way. And the sometimes burbling ambience of its second half, that on repeated listens starts feeling more foreboding than anything else, is totally new. Double Negative was a record, as they said, “at the bottom of the lake”, one that felted suited to the very dark moment of 2018. Of course, in 2018 none of us saw 2020 coming, but it feels strangely fitting that instead of going further into the dark “Days Like These” at least starts by blasting us with light. “No, you’re never gonna feel complete / No, you’re never gonna be released” they sing, but often you have to accept where you are to start making progress.
[10]

Tim de Reuse: Not just rough around the edges, but rough all the way through; the abrasive sound design, yes, but also that there’s no chorus to return to, and no clean there-and-back structure. And, yeah, the juxtaposition of “angelic harmony” versus “grungy noise” is a little trite, but when you commit to the bit so hard that you’re willing to distort your vocals to the point of incomprehensibility I’m willing to admit that it works in your favor. I mean, a song trying to describe the modern era ought to have something in it that’s not easy to listen to, right?
[9]

Edward Okulicz: I really go back on forth on this. On one hand, the way it’s recorded is deliberately a blast to the ears, deliberately confronting and awkward and difficult. But there comes a point when you make a statement by being bad, you’re still being kind of bad. I always like their voices together but this tries my patience too much.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Those first few seconds terrified me, like I hadn’t turned on Low but some glee-club recording. Fortunately, they aren’t indicative at all: the lyrics become steadily more nihilistic, as the arrangement becomes a moody cosmic drift.
[7]

This self-love gets semi-love from us only.

[Video]
[6.00]

Madi Ballista: Sigrid delivers a hip-swaying track about self-love and growth with a classic dance sound. The moody bass in the intro swinging right into the synth and strings dance rhythm brings along a satisfying momentum, and while the lyrics are on the simple side, the sentiment is genuine, and it comes through in her voice. In a time when loneliness feels endemic, there’s something comforting about the undressed assurance that sometimes being alone is the only way to grow.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: When I started listening to this, I was hoping for a “Man in the Mirror”-type song where Sigrid would unpack the emotional turmoil that comes with trying to be the best self you can be. I was not expecting a song in which Sigrid serenades her own reflection. At least Sigrid can sing.
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The definition of irony is Sigrid singing “I felt anonymous” on her most anonymous sounding track yet.
[6]

Kayla Beardslee: Oh no, Sigrid, please don’t mix Dua Lipa with generic empowerment-core… I love your music but this is so bland.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Well, someone’s been listening to Future Nostalgia.
[5]

Dorian Sinclair: “Mirror” isn’t breaking new ground, but it’s self-assured enough that it really doesn’t need to. The production is gorgeous (the squiggly bass, disco strings, and warm piano complement each other perfectly), Sigrid’s voice slinks beautifully around the melodic line, especially in the prechorus, and the lyrics are a moderately novel take on the self-empowerment breakup anthem. I particularly like the nod in the prechorus to the toll that actualization takes on the people left behind, even as it’s necessary for oneself. The bridge/outro theme feels like an afterthought, and the song ends with an abruptness I can’t decide whether I love or hate, but overall it’s a very satisfying addition to its microgenre.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Sigrid’s Sucker Punch was a bunch of great pop tunes that doubled as a complicated series of negotiations around autonomy, vulnerability, loneliness, and dependence. “Mirror” is one of those, but with added disco strings. No notes, keep it up.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Who is this girl I see, with synth-bass and disco strings? Max Martin-y disco has life in it yet, even if it betrays nothing about who Sigrid is inside. Docked a point for the bridge: I don’t know whether it’s Sigrid’s singing or her vocal processing, but it’s like she’s repeatedly pulling Jim Carrey faces in desperate hopes that maybe this time, this hollow breath or contortion of the vocal cords, will sound as husky as Dua Lipa.
[5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Okay, I know this might be savaged as the oncoming crest of the wave of Lipa-likes about to wreck our shores, but please consider: the way Sigrid’s voice rips through the euphoric chorus is just great.
[7]

Dancehall summit discusses going down…

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[6.50]

Thomas Inskeep: What a delight to hear both Shaggy and Sean Paul out of pop and back into hardcore dancehall mode, where they sound so much better. Of course, they’d better step up to match Spice, the current dancehall queen, who gives me a very Cardi B vibe here. A slammer — but at under 3 minutes, it’s too short.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: The brush percussion leads in the hiccuping snares and thudding kicks as Spice ducks and weaves while Shaggy lurks around at the murky bass synths near Sean Paul, hollering in the distance while Spice plants and waters and feeds the lilting synth line.
[7]

Oliver Maier: Sturdy, professional stuff. Hard to take issue with this, unless you care that it’s about as sensual or subtle as a brick wall.
[7]

Andrew Karpan: There’s nowhere near enough Spice in this low-key introduction to her low-rumbling dancehall sound, which appears in much stronger form even on choice cuts from her 2018 debut tape. At her most powerful moments, she can surpass even Burial’s post-dubstep’s chill with a sense of sensual intelligence that defies most bounce records. Next to her, Sean Paul & Shaggy come off like a pair of timid agitators who sound either too tired or bored to care.
[4]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: This beat is just nasty, with timbales punctuating in the best way. It feels like lights on dim, 1AM but the party’s still going. Spice, Shaggy, and Sean Paul are in classic form, their flow switching speeds in just the right spots to really drive home this hit. 
[8]

Juana Giaimo: I imagine being in a crowded club a little bit drunk, having a blast while dancing to this. The hard beat would make me feel that I know how to move my hips while the loud bass would make my heart race with excitement and the repetitive “go down deh” would almost make it all feel like a ritual experience. The following day, I probably wouldn’t even remember the song, but it honestly, it wouldn’t matter. 
[6]