THEY HIT EM WITH THE STUNNER~! 😮 …
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[5.11]
Anthony Easton: The thin wash of electronic sadness and that prickly heartbeat percussion are anxious in a way suited for nights spent awake at 4 A.M., running down the list of all your fuck-ups —Â a feeling all too familiar to me, but rarely put into music.
[7]
Alfred Soto: A lovely percussive outro, like the programmers remembered the pastoral bits of Tango in the Night, but as usual these vocals sit there — stone cold, you might say.
[4]
Iain Mew: There’s almost a fantastic AlunaGeorge song that emerges out of the middle of “Stone Cold,” but no one appears confident enough to make it properly snap. Instead the song remains like a soft electro “Somebody That I Used to Know” where the guy has already heaped so much blame and pity on himself that there can’t even be a proper argument.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: More on the “future-garage” war front as they try to slip into the charts with… man, nothing. Look, there is a “Stone Cold” by Groove Chronicles that has more rugged elegance than anything here for all this song’s “preciousness.” The drums feel like hail pellets ruining a windshield, the “warm” synths sound like a stomach bottoming out before severe digestive troubles, and the singers use all the effort of an overworked janitor struggling to stay awake. If this is an alternative to the EDM House Revival, then I can see why people want to listen to 500 rehashes of the same piano licks and gospel-diva tedium.
[2]
Will Adams: Seeing The Kite String Tangle live last fall (supporting Kate Boy) was the perfect way to discover his music. Over healthy subwoofers, his garage production knocked, but there was too much idiosyncrasy and melancholy for it to work as actual dance music. It’s a clever approach, and “Stone Cold” is one of the best examples of it, in large part due to Tiana Khasi’s strong (and prominent) contribution.
[8]
Mo Kim: “…so yeah, it’d be great if you could remake ‘Rather Be,’ just with a double-dose of Lunesta crushed in. And a lot less variation.”
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: There’s a very valid and necessary discussion to be had about how many fidgety electro-pop acts such as The Kite String Tangle (uggggh) use female vocalists as a sort of decoration, while still reaping all the accolades via their wobbly production. “Stone Cold” isn’t a good starting point for that conversation, though, because Tiana Khasi sounds great while the male vocals sound like clumsy poetry, not aided by all the electronic fizzles.Â
[6]
Alex Ostroff: “Stone Cold” is pleasant enough in a 2-sleepy 2-step way, but Jacques Greene’s “Another Girl” was four years ago, The xx’s steel drum heartbreak duets are even older, and the sound that I once couldn’t get enough of is swiftly growing stale. Such charms as this track has are entirely due to Tiana Khasi. I imagine listening to The Kite String Table’s full-length prompts disappointment similar to the first time you discovered that most songs by The Postal Service didn’t feature Jenny Lewis. Except at least The Postal Service had interesting beats.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Chilly as a polar vortex, torpid like twinning self-loathing vortices, and impressive but nigh-unlistenable; apologies to Rich Juzwiak, but this is why you generally don’t want to hear both sides of a breakup in tandem.
[6]