So YOU say, dudes.

[Video][Website]
[3.50]

Michelle Myers: I have been trying to argue that the mid 2000s wave of pseudo-indie pop-rock is not creatively bankrupt, that some decent songs emerged from this cesspool of advert-friendly MOR schlock. Songs like this — musically forgettable, lyrics copped from some start-up’s Techweek pitch — make my work difficult.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Your song is called “Renegades” and you’re called X Ambassadors, which sounds like a PS2 combat snowboarding game. Why does your single sound like an off-brand “The Boxer”?
[3]

Iain Mew: The field for alt songs with stomp-clap rhythms isn’t exactly a wide and varied one one, but X Ambassadors find a useful space as The Neighbourhood setting up campfire. It’s the same kind of luxurious restraint that makes it a pleasing listen even though their revolution clearly doesn’t mean any more than Imagine Dragons’ did.
[7]

Alfred Soto: One of those songs whose insistence on staying in the same tempo and groove — it’s all chorus — can’t obscure its airheadedness. The strumming and clapping are a revival meeting in an empty hall.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Too dull for words.Think of any modern rock you’ve heard in the last two years: “Renegades” sounds like all of it.
[1]

Micha Cavaseno: *samples the acoustic guitar nonsense in this song’s opening, places it behind black and white footage of v. attractive models, take extensive shots of their jeans, which are somehow in blue. Make sure the girl’s brows look kinda forlorn but not messy, and make sure the guy has twenty-seven hours of stubble. Take several shots of their bodies, faces, the jeans, the jeans, then their hands meeting, and the duo walking away, jeans in the view* Walk on your own path. With X Ambassadors.
[1]

Will Adams: Why have your lyrics promise danger when the undergirding sound is so tranquil? Why title your song “Renegades” when you play by the rules perfectly?
[4]

Brad Shoup: “All hail the new kitsch” indeed. Never spit those marbles, dudes.
[7]