Falling just a bit short of average…
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[4.86]
Jessica Doyle: I have a general bias towards songs that progress — or maybe more accurately, a bias towards progression in a song: the idea of the final minute as the dramatic climax, all of Chekhov’s proverbial guns firing. So my first instinct was to whine, it doesn’t go anywhere. And then I listened to it again. And again. It doesn’t go anywhere, and I don’t want to leave.
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: And the house revival starts to steer into the ill-omen color of the seas of Dido, James Blake’s signposts leading not to a new continent but right into the same old whirlpool.
[1]
Anthony Easton: First melancholic piano ballad of the year and I’m hoping for precedent, because it requires skill and devotion to make the piano sound so despondent, so anti-lush. Extra point for the snaps, and for the Auto Tune.
[7]
Crystal Leww: Listen, I want another Jessie Ware, too, but this comes off more like the listless Adele or Sam Smith. “Falling Short” sounds like an art school artist getting really into a synth machine and pitch shifting without remembering that charm matters, too.
[4]
Will Adams: Polite piano, perfunctory pitch-shifts, pat and placating.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: If there’s a fundamental difference between Detour City, whom I find haunting and emotive, and this, which I find pleasant and placid, I couldn’t explain it to you. But instincts count for something, right?
[4]
David Sheffieck: The bridge is genuinely unexpected, a completely arresting moment where the ground seems to drop out from under you. That it works so well is in part due to the low-key predictability of the rest of the song, like background music that fades from mind the second you stop deliberately engaging. There’s potential here — Låpsley has a voice, and that lone production choice is very smart. But as yet it’s only potential, not realized.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The organ, Portishead percussion, and distorted harmonies create an agreeable cocktail hour melancholy, although it runs on a bit into dinner.
[5]
Megan Harrington: I suppose we’re supposed to hear a spartan strength in all of the restrained minimalism. I guess Låpsley intended quiet humility with her vague lyrics about an unspecified failure. I think this song should be drawing tears from my eyes but it’s so boring I can only muster up a small yawn.
[4]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: There are a lot of issues inherent in each edition of the BBC’s Sound of ___
[4]
Scott Mildenhall: Wake up! Please, come on, wake up. Thinking about it if you were to say “falling låpsley” you could easily be mistaken for a tired person saying “falling asleep”, and, thinking about it, that may be the most interesting thought coming to mind in the process of listening to this song. (It’s finished now.) Holly Lapsley Fletcher does have an interesting voice — unlikely to be pinpointed as “Southport”, instead silkily languorous and imperceptibly “London”, in the grand tradition that mightn’t actually go back that far. It’s a cliche to say she could sing the phone book, but at this stage it couldn’t hurt to try.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Oh my god this is good. 20 years ago this would’ve been a Portishead track, but today it sounds more like James Blake. Lovely acoustic piano, a slight beat, occasionally pitch-shifted vocals, a hi-hat murmuring in the mix. It’s all in the service of a track that couldn’t exist without the influence of dubstep yet isn’t remotely dubstep. Låpsley’s voice recalls Natasha Khan’s in its richness, and there’s definitely an xx feel here too, but she feels like a young artist on the verge of greatness all her own.
[8]
Josh Winters: Somber, graceful transience, like watching a herd of swans circling overhead under an overcast sky. It makes me want to become physically fluid enough to choreograph and perform a lyrical routine for So You Think You Can Dance.
[7]
Brad Shoup: A cocktail hour combo runs aground on a rocky shoal at one-twentieth the speed. It’d be tragic if it weren’t so funny.
[3]