The Singles Jukebox

An early front-runner for 2018’s ugliest haircut appears!

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[4.57]

Katie Gill: Walk the Moon firmly cements their place among Gotye and Of Monsters And Men as college circuit artists that had one weirdly good, weirdly commercial hit. This is not that hit. “One Foot” will get some radio airplay because Imagine Dragons needs competition for the obligatory top ‘alternative’ 40 song and also because Lifewater will use it in a commercial or something, but it’s too generic and nondescript to have any sort of staying power.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Imagine Dragons, Of Gods and Monsters, and Twenty-One Pilots have mastered this kind of song: an EDM production in rock drag and arena/festival bound. “One Foot” is innocuous: these dudes can write a moronic hook and sing it with Tweety Pie conviction.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Have you ever wondered what happens to the current brand of pop-polyglots in rock should they not only ingest the lessons of their peers and reabsorb remnants from, of all the 80s reference points, Adam Ant? That appears to be where Walk the Moon have gone, sounding like a bunch of boastful whoops pitch tuned into feral-child squeals for evocation of some kind of triumph while insistently triumphant on the parts of themselves that you can’t even distinguish. The band themselves aren’t that far from the sort of generic pep of “Shut Up and Dance” in motivational surge, yet have reassembled themselves in a way that perfectly constitutes enduring yet not being too identifiable in 2018.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: Walk the Moon’s words of encouragement are written so strictly around the preset rhymes, the lyrics can’t bend to fit anyone’s problems but theirs. And the aphorisms fall flat from sheer obviousness if you stop dancing to think about them just for a second. Taking this one step at a time: well, you know who else is?
[4]

Hannah Jocelyn: This is so disappointing. I can normally depend on Walk The Moon for solid, occasionally transcendent pop-rock, and Mike Crossey’s produced for the 1975, so I was hoping for something at least fun. As soon as the distorted, high-pitched vocal synth came in the pre-chorus, I lost hope. There are some neat quirks like the ominous “wilderness” chant in the chorus and the manic vocal production on the second verse, but that synth noise and the saturated gang chants (was there a campfire singalong on last year’s songwriting retreat?) are enough to turn me off. Also, Fun.’s “One Foot” is less obnoxious and it starts with the musical equivalent of an elephant stomping around a circus. 
[5]

Will Adams: Walk the Moon doing uplift didn’t need to be this bland — their bright-eyed goofiness has allowed them to step slightly apart from their mid-afternoon festival peers, and this could have added the additional encouragement of individuality on top of the shoulder dusting message. But “One Foot” plays it safe with the lyrics, using the clichés we expected from the jump. Not helping are the radio pop flourishes, which make it seem like I’m being yelled to by Maroon 5.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: This is simultaneously both an earnest, cheesy pop song and a frantic, desperate attempt to apply the same formula that made “Shut Up and Dance” a frothy and enjoyable bit of danceable rock, and so much so that I feel somewhat awful praising or slagging it off. But it is pretty clearly diminishing returns; the “ooo-ooo-ooo” that was great on “Shut Up” is far less good on this, and the groove is clumpy and leaden despite the second verse’s syllable mash trying to enliven it. They’ve certainly got a talent for politely groovy guitar dance for people without rhythm, so I’ll still give them a chance.
[5]