The Singles Jukebox

Our idea to stick Disclosure graffiti on everyone was vetoed…

[Video][Website]
[6.20]

Patrick St. Michel: Some bands go a whole career without releasing one classic song or top-ten-of-the-year album, but rather build up a consistently good discography that will wow some years down the road. Camera Obscura are heading this way. “Do It Again” is a sneakily sad song that gives itself to an upbeat hop, only the lack of razor-sharp lyrics (which they’ve managed before) pushing this higher.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Tight, with a great chorus and some excellent swing. 
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: There has been a lot of effort invested in making “Do It Again” light as a feather, a lot of guile given to something that feels quite fey. Kudos to producer Tucker Martine, whose work with The Decemberists shows a knack with layering various elements into something cohesive: he presents the band’s various different elements up front, helping them craft enough space so that you can hear each section beavering away without descending into chaos. It’s a lot of body for something so spineless.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Still on form and still in form, this more or less delivers what you’d expect and hope from Camera Obscura. Only chirpier, which is welcome after the occasionally dour (but lushly so) My Maudlin Career. The breezy chorus is perfect for a drive to whatever passes for a beach in Scotland. But as inviting and happy as it is, I keep thinking part of the chorus is about to leap out of the speakers and transform into “If Looks Could Kill,” and I’m always disappointed that it doesn’t. 
[7]

Iain Mew: I love the not quite carefree chorus and the lyrics with their ambiguous questions about tears of clowns and the great absurd specificity of “Call my number, twenty six and three quarters”. The key thing stopping it from succumbing to nostalgia as they sometimes go, though, is the urgent and sticky buzz that pushes it all along. Is that a stylophone? Best pop usage since Manics’ “So Why So Sad” if so!
[8]

Brad Shoup: 4AD’s doing country now? I think I hear bongos working overtime: awesome. Pop doesn’t have enough of that. “Do It Again,” despite its somewhat valedictory feel, is an apt title: they’re playing to their strengths. Sunny with a few wildhearted flourishes on the topline and no structural waste. She & Him could sound like this in a decade.
[6]

Will Adams: Fun beach rock with a hint of fuzz, timed perfectly for the summer, in search of a brighter vocal and happier hook to make it a true anthem.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Imagine Rilo Kiley without Jenny Lewis: without her shrewdness about self-mythologizing, her wit, her alive-ness. These days recorders of catchy tunes don’t create their own imperative.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: The winsome sweetness and Hal Blaine drums get me every time, but they’re designed to. As a pop geek crushed out on Sixties nostalgia filtered through Eighties temperaments, I fell in love with Camera Obscura three albums ago. But as a novelty junkie jonesing for a new pop fix, I feel like maybe I’ve tapped this vein out.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Through headphones, with unkempt clothes and a layer of dust I’ve coughed around me, this is a [4]. (Source: hi.) Through car speakers in the summer near actual foliage, this is an [8]. (Source: years of prior tests with Camera Obscura and breezy cars.) Check back in three months and I’ll have an adjusted average.
[6]