The Singles Jukebox

He hopes.

[Video]
[4.57]

Brad Shoup: He has some of the dexterity of Aluna Francis and a lot of Sam Smith’s tuff feeling. I dunno if he produced this, but whoever did saved the most interesting stuff (the muffled kick drumming, which is present from the start but suddenly rumbles like a basement club night) for the worst lyrical bit (that bridge, woof). The last 40 seconds or so plays like four remixes running simultaneously. I dare him to try that for a full four minutes.
[6]

Crystal Leww: I think we all owe it to her to leave her alone with this.
[2]

Iain Mew: Jack Garratt has won both the BBC Introducing Artist of the Year award and the Brits Critics’ Choice award. The latter has lined up with the Sound of 20xx winner as often as not, and with its runner-up most other times. So I went into listening to “Breathe Life” expecting Jack Garratt to be the nominee most primed for success. and was pleasantly surprised by its subtlety. It has too many traces of the last two years’ winners (Sam Smith, Years & Years) to be a surprise choice, but the larger resemblance to 2011’s runner-up James Blake is a less obvious route given he didn’t go on to be a radio fixture. Garratt shows the same flair for careful atmosphere building through varied synth production, and applies it to a better song than any of Blake’s that aren’t actually Feist’s.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: How the generic fake house breakdown comes in sells the song better than this dork’s flimsy voice can ever do. Also, the second verse’s buzzy distortion lean has such more oomph than the way his ether-wet intro comes down on you. The guy’s gotta do more work though than just offer pseudo-poignant lyrics and cool production ideas.
[4]

Madeleine Lee: Piles on a lot of interesting stuff (falsetto! wobbly bass! beats! bells! the pitch- and formant-shifting thing!) at such a rate that the glue never completely dries and it becomes…a pile of a lot of interesting stuff. Listening with headphones is not rewarding.
[5]

Ramzi Awn: It’s a real shame that Jack Garratt’s falsetto doesn’t dominate the song. But the real problem with “Breathe Life” is its lack of imaginative lyrics. Good beat though.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Another whey-voiced singer with an electronic glaze frosted over a high fructose corn syrup cake. Last weekend I bought a used copy of Paul Young’s excellent 1985 LP The Secret of Association, which boasted a state of the art R&B production and wonder why this track hews so closely to the tried and untrue.
[4]