Because we had to before the title came true…

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[4.80]

Brad Shoup: Some smart-aleck will call this the first rap song to summit the Alternative chart since, I dunno, fun.’s “Some Nights.” There’s a real moodiness at the top; the last genuinely cheery tune was probably “Tongue Tied,” and that was over a year ago. “Sweater Weather” is a sex jam and it’s still colored grey, with reverb’d chords hacked out at half-speed and a Radiohead-style moaning choir. The singer hates the beach, but here he is anyway, as clear a hint as any that the Neighbourhood would like to be as big as Muse without having to crack Smile One. But rawboned vocals and a quiltist’s approach to songwriting isn’t really the way, is it?
[4]

Alfred Soto: The lead singer’s got his toes in the sand, a collection of Fray MP3’s, and a title he can’t sketch.
[3]

Will Adams: I was not aware that the phrase “sweater weather” was a euphemism for sex. Go figure.
[5]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Appropriately louche and current-sounding, “Sweater Weather” is a triumph of amalgamation. Away from Top 40 radio, the unusual influence of The Cardigans reveals itself in the track’s atmosphere and pop nous. But The Cardigans had Nina Persson’s sly vocals whenever the band wanted to turn moodier, control that singer Jesse Rutherford can’t muster yet. The delivery of “little high-waisted shorts” leaves his attempts at seduction sounding half-baked; he’s far better at angst. “I hate the beach,” Rutherford mutters, almost as a non-sequitur. As brief as it is, the song stops trying to be of-the-moment the second it tries actually focusing on a moment.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: You’d think that a band that really wants to be thought of as being in a classicist tradition would realize that all those classic recordings that they love so much left some space in the mix. This is like being drunkenly crooned at in a group bellow right in my ear.
[5]

David Lee: This starts off promising: “The Way You Move”‘s breakbeat, gilded shoegaze, and weird phrases like “touch my neck and I’ll touch yours” that might reveal the seepage of the oft-looked-down-upon Twilight into the heavily policed indie bro consciousness. But all that promise gets pushed too far so that the luxuriant bad boy vibe becomes drippy and grasping. These guys are less leaders of the pack than they are cologne models given some guitars and reverb.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Needs more lust, less adenoid; more sweat, fewer holes.
[4]

Anthony Easton: This is sweet, kind of lovely — too congenial to be truly sexy, but cozy enough to be welcome and delightful.
[6]

Iain Mew: It’s weird that this should finally start its chart climb in the height of summer. Are people nostalgic for winter as well as for weightless guitar pop? Either way, there’s no bad time for sounding so good. The guitars chime just so, the singer employs restraint that Imagine Dragons and others would do well to learn from, and the spacious middle eight, evocative of keeping quiet and listening to the drizzle fall, is delightful. On the other hand, there’s no good time to employ that much prettiness in aid of planning out a detailed faux-naive seduction routine, patronising the other party no end and starting with “all I am is a man” like doing so is a universal male thing.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: This isn’t very exciting. There is something in it, it’s just in desperate need of someone to — technical parlance — put a banging donk on it. Scooter, perhaps? Yes. That’s much better.
[5]