Yo homes, to Ella Eyre!…
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[5.50]
Anthony Easton: The water drips and cave-bottom echos add depth to a vocal performance that doesn’t know if it wants to burn the barn down or hold something in reserve.
[4]
Alfred Soto: The fun-spooky background gremlins wake up the quiet electropulse and complement Eyre’s arch nasality. The result is a nice try.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Eyre, who’s familiar to UK audiences for belting through Rudimental’s “Up All Night”, sticks to brass-led flurries when flying solo. However, on “Deeper” she’s snotty then brassy then gentle then blabbermouthed — pretty much, all sorts of deviations are explored without properly nailing any of them down. The song itself twists from soul-pop to distracted vocal modulation, but it’s frippery and the turns can be a little graceless. There’s a good song in there (that chorus is pretty cool!) but you leave “Deeper” with the sense that Eyre needs to take the wheel a little more.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Ella Eyre’s performance on Rudimental’s devastating “Waiting All Night” is one of the best of the year, vivid anguish wrought from little more than 21 words (and a production to match). It’s a bit of a shame, then, to see her move to something so safe and generic for her solo output, the only deviation from the standard coming through chopped and distorted backing vocals that, post-21, aren’t actually uncommon. It still sounds good — subtle, unlike its intentions, and her voice is already identifiable — but hopefully she’ll have more exciting tracks ready for everything after Sound Of 2014.
[7]
Brad Shoup: This song’d be bobbing without those backing coos, I think, but then again, that underwater synth padding is the most latchable feature here. The arbitrary grotesquerie of the pitch-shifted vocals would seem to indicate everyone involved was flailing to distinguish this modern soul cut.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: “I need to dig a little deeper”: chorus or feedback from a BRIT School workshop?
[5]