The Singles Jukebox

“James Bay (French: Baie James, Cree: Wînipekw) is a large body of water on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada.” Hang on, that’s not right…

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Claire Biddles: James, babe, there are some decent ideas here but you’re just going to have to learn to edit. The next time you whack a synth and some vocoder on, maybe try weeding away some of the anthemic rock histrionics? Introduce some light and shade? Electronic elements can be more than just a last minute sparkling topping for your guitar balladry, I promise. This could be a teachable moment for you! Trust me, my favourite band is The 1975. 
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Julian Axelrod: This sounds like Francis and the Lights without the conviction or the high-profile songwriting credits. In other words, it’s just another white guy with a synth.
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Iain Mew: James Bay turning his music into spongy electronic James Blayke is a pleasing surprise turn, even if he reverts to type in overegging it soon enough.
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Alfred Soto: It’s hard to call your love “wild” when you call a choir for backup within seconds of stepping in front of the mike. And why the voice distortion — is he afraid someone’ll confuse him for Ed Sheeran?
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Will Adams: That James Bay’s idea of “wild” amounts to an insipid reduction of the synth washes and puréed, braying backing vox that Bon Iver discovered a decade ago almost elicits some sort of feeling from me. Almost.
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Ryo Miyauchi: James Bay tries to dress up his offer into what wild love should look like. His voice gets warped Bon Iver-style, and that distorted guitar solo got riffs coiled up like tendrils. But it doesn’t change the facts what he actually wants is pretty vanilla, and the bones of this is a standard pharmacy-store ballad despite the studio touch up.
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Katherine St Asaph: The mix is as watery and off-tempo as a bobbing rubber duck, the vocals off-key as Steve Mauldin singing Sam Smith — I had to make sure nothing else was autoplaying. (And I nominate: Toto’s “Africa” one step out of key and off-beat.) Let’s be clear: the adult-contemporary!Jessie Ware track beneath this sonic waterboarding would still be fusty and boring. It just wouldn’t also be a monstrosity.
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