Dancing a little less slow…
[Video]
[4.12]
Will Adams: Pro: George Miller appears to have learned to open his mouth more than a millimeter when pushing sounds out. Con: this means we have to hear more of his dubious pitch. Pro: there’s more pop aspiration here than previous efforts, which mainly means there’s somewhat of a pulse. Con: this means we’re edging closer to Filthy Frank becoming a legitimate artiste.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Given that I have happily taken my horse to the old town road, I have no rational, un-hypocritical grounds to distrust a song whose singer is less known as a musician than a memelord. But I have ample grounds to dislike halfhearted pivots to alt-R&B: How to Dressup Well.
[3]
Ian Mathers: It’s not that I think he’s still trolling us, although anyone who used to roll their eyes at his attempts at humour not cutting Joji slack is… 100% fair. But replacing that with Lo-fi Chill Beats Study Mix music, just singsong-y enough to generate a truly nasty earworm, feels of a piece, you know?
[4]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: That’s quite a hummable hook, but Joji’s riding hard on mere evocation of mood with lyrics this nonspecific. Which would be fine, but his singing isn’t strong enough to sell the unspoken details.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Its evocation of late night erotic claustrophobia owes something to early-decade Miguel, but like Sam Smith he presents himself as a R&B man with no qualms about sharing pain: it signifies the kind of “sincerity” that has him signaling the bartender for the check.
[5]
Iris Xie: Linkin Park meets Sam Smith, but remove the most interesting parts of both and you have “Sanctuary.” It’s a surprisingly discomforting song that tries to cast itself as contemporary, charming, and full of space and longing, but ends up being the exact opposite, suffocating and cloying. The prechorus reveals the truth, where Joji tries to express how he is looking but his love interest doesn’t have to wait anymore, because he “knows” that “when you lay alone, I ache / Something I wanted to feel.” He then casts himself in a role where his love interest could be fulfilled since he’s right here, and he isn’t looking for an angel anyway so he wants you. These sentiments are supposed to be sweet, but “Sanctuary” is backdropped by nu-metal trappings, mildly interesting percussive throbbing, and syrupy singing that sound like the song was mastered inside a panini press. Actual space has no oxygen and no sound and is deeply unlike the romantic notions of space that we are often sold on, and “Sanctuary” is an inadvertent reminder. I’ve never heard a ballad before that made me so acutely admit that most love songs exude toxic sentiments, and that we don’t really need to have pop songs that encourage replacing another person’s thoughts with our own.
[3]
Iain Mew: An inverse of “Slow Dancing in the Dark” — Joji’s vocals have a new clarity and focus, proving surprisingly strong, but the music is far more smeared and nondescript. Of the two I prefer this slow dancing in the light, but it still sounds like a work in progress.
[6]
Alex Clifton: I got so bored listening to this that I couldn’t even bother to write a witty or substantial review.
[3]