The Singles Jukebox

No one mentioned the Bon Iver cover, so our editor’s Sword of Easy Zing Smiting remains in the scabbard…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Katherine St Asaph: Gleaming synthpop, just barely wracked by guitar licks and despair; the sort elevated to the heavens by Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Helen Marnie or Sarah Cracknell. Alice Fox is not Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Helen Marnie or Sarah Cracknell. She’s more like Little Boots. But hey, I didn’t hate that Little Boots album.
[7]

Will Adams: This subgenre of breathy, shimmery synthpop is usually right up my alley, but the chorus doesn’t explode like it should, the half-time bridge trudges and the synths are too wooden to give this any lift.
[5]

Brad Shoup: More spangled factory precision, but the vocal engine is puny. That’s not to say the sequencing ‘n’ thud is remarkable; still small voices work when you shake the ground first.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Just-competent synth-pop, scuppered by a vocal that’s not so much anonymous but barely present. Which might be fine, except the song’s called “Hold On”; you might expect a bit more in the way of feeling. The instrumental break after the second chorus is marvelously crunchy, though, and four minutes of that would have been worth a few more points.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Anonymous in the best sense, aided by those buzzing synths and distorted guitars.
[7]

Iain Mew: I love the way that the intro gets blown away and the song bursts into life for the line “Night time is the time you’ll be awake”. It’s like a thousand neon lights being turned on.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Like streetlights and neon smeared on wet?asphalt as you take a cab to the airport — but, you know, for a work trip.
[6]