So they’d quite like a hit in America now, then…
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[4.42]
Mark Sinker: Haha is THIS what they sound like? Based on my now sadly lost and torn listener’s objectivity – viz. i.e. e.g. on PRINCIPLE I never listen to ANYTHING — I had the SSisters filed in my head as the Tubes meet the Cheeky Girls. BOY AM I DISAPPOINTED.
[2]
Chuck Eddy: First I was guessing they’d regressed from ’70s Elton John to ’80s Elton John (though, for all I know, they’ve been ’80s Elton all along — it’s not like I’ve ever really kept close tabs), but nope: Near as I can tell, they’ve been stars in England so long now that they’ve gone and turned into a slightly more flashy than usual (which isn’t saying much) Brit-pop band. Though again, for all I know, they did that a while ago, too.
[5]
Pete Baran: I can’t help but think this is the sound of not being on all the great drugs any more.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Gorgeous vocal melody in the verses here, and Stuart Price (good choice of producer) knows how to build up into an explosive chorus, which, unfortunately, this lacks. Rhyming “fire” and “desire” is all very well (I’m all fire/desired out after Eurovision, sorry), but while each note reaches skyward, the actual combination seems eerily empty. Nice sentiments, nice build, nothing more, though. More dark disco, less bad 70s rock radio, please; it’s not too late to ditch this and make “Invisible Light” the actual single, guys!
[6]
Anthony Easton: Fire/desire might be the weakest rhyme in recent memory, so weak that it destroys the rest of the not very good track.
[5]
Tom Ewing: Lumbering, diffident half-ballad — the inescapable fire/desire stuff is in line with the general level of inventiveness here. Even then, there’s a brazenness to that — a will to have a big chorus even when hooks are failing — which the rest of the song doesn’t deliver on. Very disappointing.
[3]
Iain Mew: To make fun of this for rhyming “fi-yeh” and “desi-yeh” would almost be too generous as it doesn’t so much rhyme them as just stick them there amidst the empty epic signifiers. Once the beat kicks in things pick up slightly, but only to being propelled through mush rather than plodding through it.
[3]
Alfred Soto: This takes a while to get going, and doesn’t soar like you’d expect with that title and that chorus. But the Sisters have become increasingly adept at padding okay songs with layers of extraneous effects that up the sleaze quotient. I have no problem with sleazy dance songs.
[8]
Martin Skidmore: The beats are okay, and another act might have made this another lovely dance number, but the lifeless and clumping vocal and mechanical guitars kill that. I think their 15 minutes has gone for good.
[4]
Ian Mathers: I really did not like that ballad-y opening. But then the chorus gets a bit better, and then a beat comes in, and before you know it we’re in the land of widescreen oontz-oontz greatness. It’s not up there with the band’s best, and honestly I don’t even know how well it will have aged in a week or so, but right now that rousing finale is such a relief that I’m kindly disposed towards it.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m ornery about rhymes today, and halfway through this, I started singing “We’ll rhyme fire with fire, with desire….” Never stopped, though, so Scissor Sisters’ earwormery must have worked again, damn it.
[5]
Matt Cibula: Didn’t want to hate on this, even though I have never really liked these off-off-off-Broadway chancers. But the music is not original enough to offset the horrible clichés; did Mr. Mister or the Fixx crawl from their unholy sepulchres to pen this weak soup? And the singer has all the charisma of Jesse St. James from “Vocal Adrenaline” (granted, that will only make sense to a few of you, but I think you’ll know EXACTLY what I mean).
[3]