The (A?) Sound of 2011 returns to the Jukebox!…

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[5.29]Katherine St Asaph: It takes more to be anthemic than playing Ke$ha at half-speed.
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Alfred Soto: The sheen is such that it’s difficult to hear past the racket, but these New Zealanders’ hearts are theirs and they beat strongly, especially when one of them abandons the fullthroated approach to entreat her lover, “Let’s leave this place.”
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Brad Shoup: Our alt-rock station still has “Young Blood” in what feels like rib-cracking rotation. I don’t tend to speculate, and I’m not even a fan, but it feels like a classic: an air-tight composition, built for multiple uses. No one’s going to remember the band’s name, but they’ll know “YEAH EYEAH EYEAH”. Now it’s “ah-ha-ha”, and the overdriven guitars are the focus. They’ve got the same genial stiffness as Peter Gabriel. Also, his gift for counter-melodic fragments. Which is all good, because otherwise we’d have a four-and-a-half minute song that would feel like seven. But songform is still their friend.
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Mallory O’Donnell: Desperate, plodding attempt at an MGMT-style American crossover radio anthem. About as fun as wading through caramel, while a Betamax video of Eddie & the Cruisers plays in the background. I think you’re supposed to set down the guide track at a tempo you can actually play to and then raise the tempo and pitch bend it? I don’t know, I’m really just repeating what I’ve heard.
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Scott Mildenhall: Asking for a friend: does laughing at the line “will I ever follow through?” make a person immature? Never mind. “Hearts Like Ours” is a familiar trick not quite pulled off. Any passion that’s gone into it must have been to try and make it sound passionate, which — surprise — it doesn’t, ending up more overthought than overwrought.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: On the latter half of the chorus to “Hearts Like Ours,” the music shifts keys, sounding more urgent and dramatic. The middle-eight is brought forward to the chorus, a sign of sheer confidence if I had ever heard one. And “Hearts Like Ours” is a confident strut, all shiny and aspirational and satisfying in the way only well-executed pop can be.
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John Seroff: “Hearts Like Ours,” from title to final chord, fails to convince. It is ersatz and generic as if crafted for a toy line or a montage in a film about a better band. Sure, everything is professionally done and swells and ebbs on cue but whatever glitterpaste bonds these things into a more glorious whole got left behind.
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