Jakwob, if you’re reading… is this really you?
[Video][Website]
[4.00]
Will Adams: I can’t help thinking that someone infiltrated the Jukebox’s system and is using Jakwob’s name to promote his own set of half-baked dubstep monstrosities available for free download on his Soundcloud profile. It won’t work for several reasons. For one, Jakwob is much better than this.
[2]
Brad Shoup: Our robot overlords at Billboard have declared “Too Close” a “dubstep-inflected power ballad,” which is clearly insane. (Technically, it’s a Diplo-infected psychographic.) This is the real deal, a wubbing little music box loaded with ponderous pronouncements that begin “these are”.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: The moody beat, with its high-definition separation of elements, begs for an equally dynamic vocal and lyric, but all it gets is more moping.
[4]
Iain Mew: The vocals add nothing, but the wobbles are wobbles as sad wobbles should be, and they combine with the piano and the music box chipsets to graceful effect.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: The opening is lush and dramatic, and the chorus wears its obvious sonic tricks (big multi-tracked moping, mild wobbling) with beaming pride and it’s weirdly uplifting. Between that, you’ve got the biggest dead air verses imaginable; not dramatic, just whiny. An instrumental of this would be worth at least another 2 points.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Depth of emotion or ambition is is often coded with a piano carving out space in the landscape, like a glacier through a valley if it works, of like a pebble in the bathtub when it doesn’t. This is the latter.
[3]