The Singles Jukebox

Just tell her already ffs!

[Video][Website]
[5.90]

Jer Fairall: Nearly identical to DJ Fresh and Rita Ora’s “Hot Right Now,” though Eyre is the more soulful vocalist, and a longing horn section adds to the depth of feeling that this track seems to be striving for. What it has in tastefulness, though, it lacks in propulsion, and if that makes it the more respectable of the two tracks, it cannot help but make it the duller one as well. 
[5]

Anthony Easton: Dirtier and more desperate than the rest of the neo-soul folks in the UK right now, but with a horn section that is equally tight.
[8]

Iain Mew: Rudimental knows what we’re here for and waits just long enough to deploy each element to build up anticipation. The breakbeats, the bass whomp, the brass. Each is no less pleasurable for its predictability. The only thing letting it down is Ella Eyre’s vocals, which are strong and urgent but don’t offer the kind of revelatory gut-punch that John Newman brought to “Feel the Love”. Which, yes, I chronically underrated by giving it this same score.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The studio-heavy style of D&B that Rudimental puts out has always seemed to me about searching for a frenetic emotional release, where optimism seems genuinely uplifting, where sorrow seems soul-crushing, where there is no middle ground. It’s exhausting. So when guest vocalist Ella Eyre restrains her voice at the exact moment you would forgive her to drop a Very Big Note, she allows the track to surge forward and become more than cannon fodder. It’s the shade of grey that the song needs, not only sounding lovely but giving “Waiting All Night” the all-important third dimension it has lacked throughout. Then after ten seconds or so, the Very Big Note comes and it’s back to business as usual for Rudimental: a storm of noise with little let-up and even less craft.
[4]

Crystal Leww: The vocal on this track owns, and Rudimental break up the usual drum and bass repetition with some well placed trumpet and guitar. Unfortunately, it still drags on about a minute too long.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: I was waiting all song for Rudimental to do something more than drum ‘n’ bass calisthenics…and it came when the beat vanished and the song took a more dramatic twist. It appears way too late, though, and the payoff is more of the same.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: One night I’ll hear this back-to-back with “Perfect Stranger,” someplace with spotlights and new faces, and for a moment I’ll need nothing else from music.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: Rudimental look to have, by now, laid their cards on the table. Brass + organ + “ooh ooh”s + sadness + drum & bass = how to make music with a formula. It’s a method that, with appropriate tweaks, saw them deliver two of the best singles of last year, and the key to that, the special ingredient, has been, of course, the wonderful, miserable, aching sadness. So far their singles have been on a sliding scale of the stuff. “Feel The Love”‘s utter, transcendental joy belied traces of it. “Not Giving In” acknowledged it, but decided that it was in no way any reason to fold; quite the opposite. “Waiting All Night,” however, is all too aware of it: it’s about to break under its pressure. Even more than those that preceded it, it’s a song that’s going for the gut, and successfully so. The fourth single will now have to be some kind of reinterpretation of “Gloomy Sunday“. It’s the only logical step. 
[8]

Brad Shoup: I give less of a shit about pre-programming than I should, I guess; I liked the part where Avicii was all “these lyrics are bad, y’all” in that terrible article and then Avicii was like “…” after rebutting everything else. All your heroes are diagnosable charismatics, selling you shit you could’ve just lived out. As far as ridiculous lines go, “tell me that you need me/tell me that you want me” doesn’t hit like “I can feel the love/can you feel it too.” Could be the anemic break, or the half-hearted horn chart. The bass still roils, but it’s the best of an untended bag of tricks.
[5]

Will Adams: Something is… missing. The growling bass keeps its head down, but the horns sound so far away, and the choir’s interjections are ghostly at their loudest. Perhaps if Ella Eyre had pushed more against the drum ‘n’ bass clatter I wouldn’t have minded, but this sounds curiously empty. 
[5]