The Singles Jukebox

To be fair, as has been pointed out, we covered most of the better Sound Of artists already…

[Video]
[5.67]

Tim de Reuse: Hey, speaking of cathedrals, did her voice need that much reverb? Bird sounds like a technically impressive singer, but the presentation here is tortuously overwrought, especially during the awkwardly fast roll of the chorus, where the whole song gets muddled together into something with the texture and flavor of mashed banana.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Evokes a less misanthropic Laura Marling; also evokes the acoustic-desk-concert version of a song that really wants to be Big Pop, with a big pop chorus.  
[5]

Will Adams: There’s something quite sad about only liking the first thirty seconds of a song. The first verse sets up the space beautifully and patiently — voice and guitar filling the cathedral like a rolling fog. But then the chorus bumbles along and turns everything into an Important Moment that detracts from the opening.
[5]

Leah Isobel: Nice voice, pretty arrangement, wan storytelling. For a song about leaving her lover at the altar, Bird doesn’t really go out of her way to provide details or insight — she takes heartbreak as a foregone conclusion and acts accordingly, but we don’t really know why. It doesn’t make that double-time chorus melody less fun to listen to, but it does keep “Cathedral” from feeling truly distinctive or interesting. It ultimately lands as secondhand iconography; we still feel its significance, but it lacks a central force to bind it together and make it into something new and urgent.
[5]

Iain Mew: I like the way that “Cathedral” draws on the same kind of darkness as Daughter, stilled and then scouring. The later stages when Jade Bird loses her vocals in a cavern that sounds more made of mud than stone aren’t as satisfying as they could be, but the sense of scale still works.
[6]

Stephen Eisermann: Ouch, this hurts. I made the mistake of sitting alone in a dark room on my laptop while listening to this for the first time and the experience was haunting, painful, ethereal, and liberating all at once! I find it bizarre how much I identify with this song considering I have such a weird fear of being left at the altar, but the way Jade sings with such longing about past times in her relationship before the threat of marriage loomed over her relationship is stunning.
[8]