Derek brings us the debut of a duo with a ridiculously Shakespearean “About” page…
[Video][Website]
[6.50]
Sabina Tang: Two main things going for this track: the low-riding rubber-ball bassline that I hardly perceived before deploying the good speakers, and Brittney Shields’ supple voice that ramps up and down the yandere scale from indie-pop sweetness to Beth Ditto dramatics with zero subjective sense of effort. It’s ’05 electrohouse revivalist formalism, pretty much, with all the emotional payload that implies.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: You guys first.
[3]
Scott Mildenhall: In some ways this is an exploration into how much pop lyricism normalises pretty unhealthy sentiments. On first hearing, there isn’t an eyelid to be batted at the opening line’s barefaced declaration of outright stalking. It’s probably metaphorical anyway, right? And the exaggeratedly intense lines that follow, well… in the grand scheme of pop they’re nothing unusual. Following you home, though? Bashing in your windows? Perhaps this all is a bit full-on after all. No other medium can heighten emotions — balanced ones, ones it may even manufacture in you — into such a short, sharp rush of wondrous irrationality. If either half of Oh, Be Clever have ever lost themselves bellowing along to “Alone”, that would not come as a surprise.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: Half slinky submerged obsessive electro, half overblown throbbing pop maximalism that sounds like Demi Lovatox1000, all massive.
[9]
Mark Sinker: Anthemic stalker-bosh, mixed to mask some of its subtler touches. You got the restraining order because every time you opened your front door the cannon of pop sound punched you yards back down inside your own front hall.
[6]
Leela Grace: The big, shimmering chorus is nothing new — sign it off as more of The Naked and Famous — but the verses take adolescent infatuation to its violent ends (“I bashed in your window”). “She’s got your attention but not for long” is very “Throw Aggi Off The Bridge.” Sometimes melodrama is the most honest form.
[8]
Alfred Soto: To begin with murmuring Chairlift synth melancholia and climax with an Ariana Grande chorus is to realize one’s market ambitions in 2014.
[5]
David Moore: That M83 song is the scourge of my coffee-shop-as-office existence, and this splits the difference between that and a c. 2006 Max Martin chorus. Theoretically, that should appeal to me against my better judgment. In practice… it appeals to me against my better judgment.
[7]
Iain Mew: “I feel alive next to you,” by comparison, because they’re dead after you stalked and killed them, right? It would make the unhinged extremes of the sound fitting rather than exhausting. They’re caught in a middle ground, though, where that meaning is too obvious to be clever with it but not emphasised enough to have much fun with it.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Slightly sleazy ’80s-style wet-concrete-reflecting-red-neon production, especially on the spit-out choruses. I could get behind this.
[8]
Brad Shoup: The best part is the hair metal chorus: Brittney Shields wails against the night, the electronic drums tattoo the spectrum. Everything else is there to get from B to A.
[5]
Will Adams: The chorus’ lyrics are passionate, even sweet, which makes it all the more creepy when contextualized with the obsessive verses. When Brittney Shields rages on the middle eight, the danger rises to levels of red. A lesser song would have been pummeled by the gargantuan production; “Next To You” sees the mega-watt electro-rock and goes all in.
[8]
Crystal Leww: Still riding that wave, but with the weakest vocals and the lightest synths. I can see this going on a compilation about this sort of revival stuff, but I could never see it as the centerpiece.
[4]
Derek Gazis: What a chorus! That’s clearly the main attraction here, and it’s made even better by the contrast between those soaring vocals and the hushed, dreamy tone of the verses. The lyrics have a pleasant simplicity, and the song has a great beat and a memorable electronic intro/outro. All in all, a very impressive debut!
[8]