Moderate enthusiasmz!

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[6.00]

Alfred Soto: This amalgram of Classix, Kashif, and Italo disco is too mild to offer anything but faint pleasure, but since I’ve played it a half dozen times in the last half hour while on hold with a hotel and talking to my boss I won’t underestimate it further.
[6]

David Sheffieck: This sounds a lot like something I would’ve stumbled upon on SoundCloud five years ago, and I mean that as a compliment. The spacey synths and popping bass are a window to a potential ’70s revival that was snuffed out by Pharrell’s overwhelming influence on our current nostalgia kick; any evocation of the decade since 2013 has been filtered through his take on it. Which means the vibe Clubz evoke doesn’t sound tired: there’s still plenty to excavate, and they’ve latched onto a promising vein of ore. 
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: One of the weird things about when people from an “indie”-aesthetic attempt to approach older R&B styles is a certain self-conscious desire to do much more than their influences did. Perhaps, if you believe the theory that as retroactive fans they’re interlopers into a genre, they feel that way and have to do something “more” to feel like its their own. In the case of “Popscuro,” really it almost feels like Clubz hit the perfect point of emulating Kashif, but the busy feeling of that bass-part feels like Working At being funky as opposed to just being it. Still, I’m a sucker for any decent unnecessary synth bridge that can sound so wistful.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: The lounge vibes are plenty chic, and the trebley guitar almost works itself up into a nebbish frenzy worthy of Phoenix themselves. I’d be more kindly predisposed if the quite energetic bassline exhibited even the slightest hint of funk; “Popscuro” extends its concern no further than the waist.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Clubz’s candy guitar-funk in “Popscuro” would fare well in the era of mp3 blogs and the rise of bloghaus. But more than the honey-thick keys or the tease of the marimbas, I imagine the duo’s slightly detached presence hitting a chord. Their voices come off as a lonely echo, like the record is an eavesdrop of a shy boy practicing a voicemail he wants to leave.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: As always, I wish as much care was spent on the vocals as the licks. Sorta caps the track at middling Booka Shade vocalist.
[5]

Claire Biddles: A promising start, but the song ultimately drags, feeling way longer than its four minutes — I wished for a stronger vocal to bring interest to the kind of plodding backing.
[4]

Mark Sinker: This is a route New Order should have taken.
[6]