They’ve nicked this one to the keeper…
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[2.67]
John Seroff: I honest-to-god believed that I’d already listened to, reviewed and discarded this song months ago. If this is some sort of test by the Jukebox editor staff, I call your bluff. If “Sparks” really is “new music”, it’s noteworthy only insofar as a barometer of how quickly the snake is eating its tail… which is to say quite quickly indeed. Wholly disposable.
[2]
Jonathan Bradley: “Sparks” stitches together Tedder-esque slow-motion anxiety with slinky Auto-Tune&B: two trends that feel a touch too 2010 for a brand new pop song. “Happy to see you, setting me off like sparks,” is how the chorus goes. “On the doorstep, like we’d never been apart, hope you know that I’m happy to see you.” There’s an emotional specificity there that Cover Drive shows no interest in exploring.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: The boys (18 and 22): “It’s just another night, the boys are getting high, but baby, in my head, I’m nailing you instead.” The girls (18 and 21): “I hope you know that I’m happy to see you,” intoned like Dies Irae. This is the most depressing would-be love song I have ever heard. It makes Girls look like Pushing Daisies. And it’s a single. I weep with my generation.
[3]
Iain Mew: Autotuned gloom which manages to do minimalism and emotion for the chorus without totally slowing down into mush, albeit mostly by lurching abruptly between the girl bits and boy bits. It’s still their best and most interesting single to date.
[4]
Brad Shoup: It’s getting a little painful to watch them try. Uncalled-for levels of EQ, near-parodic Auto-Tune, that old-school zombie tempo… so many tricks, no treats. That it only lasts three minutes is something of a dispensation.
[1]
Alfred Soto: “You know my every thought,” the girls sings all Rihanna-esque to two men who sound like Speak & Spells. If there are sparks it’s from leaving their mainframes on overnight.
[3]