Look at his face. Just look at his face…

[Video][Website]
[3.56]

Anthony Easton: The harmonies when they talk about “tonight” are so sweet, genteel, and pretty that those two words have an exquisiteness that formally excuses any of the other pandering. 
[5]

Brad Shoup: Wow. Now Lady A’s flinging themselves headfirst into predestination pop. I could see this scoring a MADD-style purity slideshow, only instead of flipped cars it’s all wailing babies and contemplative shots of shattered dishes. Do these guys even have another gear besides ‘ballad’? Their aural anaesthesia has taken a dark turn, and proms are gonna suffer as a result.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: This tensionless shrug is the best argument against abstinence ever.
[4]

Michaela Drapes: I believe what you’re actually hearing here is the aural equivalent of a thousand sighing Twi-moms sucking all the air out of the room at the sight of a shirtless Taylor Lautner.
[0]

Edward Okulicz: It’s all very well having nice harmonies, but neutering your best asset — Hillary Scott’s emotive power — in service of a snoozy ballad about waiting marks you out as generic AOR hucksters who fluked it big, rather than reliable writers of crossover smashes. Look, nobody loved “Need You Now” more than I did, but I’m imagining a world in which Gloriana’s anti-waiting “Wild At Heart” was the song that got the country-pop Grammy bonanza and it’s a much better place, believe me.
[4]

Alfred Soto: “I don’t wanna push too far,” the two singers harmonize, and they mean it. More and more it sounds like “Need You Now” was the kind of songwriting and singing fluke that professionals spend decades repeating. On the bright side, these guys could spend decades cranking out theme songs for WB dramas.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: Lady Antebellum’s vocal chemistry is undeniable, but I haven’t heard a song since “Need You Now” that capitalises on it properly. “Just A Kiss” tries to recapture lightning in a bottle with another bad-idea sexual tension narrative. Unfortunately, they don’t really sell me on the idea that rushing things is as bad an idea as drunk dialing the ex, and their declarations that it’s “so hard to hold back” are utterly unconvincing. Bring back the smoulder, please?
[4]

Sally O’Rourke: For a song about fighting the flames of lust, “Just a Kiss” has zero spark. Lady Antebellum can’t seem to figure out that a duet doesn’t work if the voices don’t meld together. How am I supposed to believe they’re struggling to keep their hands off each other if they don’t even sound like they’re in the same studio?
[3]

Ian Mathers: She’s got a lovely voice, and the sentiment is awfully sweet and not even that old-fashioned (any physical reticence seems to be coming out of a fear of scaring the other person off, not fear of sin), and honestly it’s nice to have a song that’s about liking someone so much that you’re terrified of screwing things up instead of turning into a combination Lothario/stalker instead. Unfortunately, his voice is like the end of the video, tipping the whole thing over into soft-rock mawkishness. I can’t seem to get past it, any more than I can bring myself to care about Brady and Joy’s meet-extremely-cute.
[6]