As Balzac said, There goes another British #1 single…

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[4.29]Iain Mew: It’s stranded in some confused dance-soul-pop nowhere land, with the kind of awkwardly busy detailing that sounds like no-one zoomed out and considered the overall effect of getting that fiddly with that little substance. It being #1 mostly makes me wonder how well Kelli-Leigh could be doing now with due credit. On the plus side she’s at least held off the latest from the Ed Sheeran/Sam Smith duopoly.
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Thomas Inskeep: “Inspiring.” “Anthemic.” Generic. The UK’s ’90s house revival has officially become a series of pale xeroxes. The chorus here has some nicely, ahem, uplifting house piano, but that’s all there is to recommend “Hold My Hand.” Plus, its lyrics are are a stream of what Morrissey would call “dial-a-cliché[s]” and Glynne’s voice, in all its quirky P!nk-ness, is nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying.
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Alfred Soto: A third UK #1 suggests she’s tapping into something, and I defer to our British writers to explain the something. To my ears she sounds OK, recording what would be midtempo balladry if her instincts didn’t steer her to dance beats. I don’t hear a single surprising verse or melodic shift here, just the de rigeur house beat, which I’ll take over midtempo balladry.
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Micha Cavaseno: Jess Glynne kind of lives in technical ecstasy. Its one thing to accuse someone of oversinging, but there’s another outright when someone seems more happy to put effort into a terribly self-gratifying rising scale melody verse structure than in the actual hook. Production here is an afterthought, as opposed to her work with Clean Bandit who seemed to receive a certain balance in the power (possibly because they were a BAND and not some measly producing nerdo), and shows why Jess Glynne might not last long outside of her initial rise to prominence.
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Scott Mildenhall: Jess Glynne’s voice pushes the limits of stridency, but thankfully she keeps just within the lines. It’s impressive because “Hold My Hand” is exuberant to the point of bursting. There are no designs on “cool,” nor the constraints that had “Right Here” sounding more leaden than joyous, just delight in anticipation of a certainty. It’s the excitement of a precipice.
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Edward Okulicz: I take back my criticisms of that Madonna single as being stiff and lifeless. Turns out that the polar opposite is just suffocating.
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Brad Shoup: That pre-chorus is so crucial. For just a few seconds, the drilling stops. The sustained violin bit is a nice callback to “Rather Be,” but 90% of this is like sucralose Jackie Wilson.
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