The Singles Jukebox

Lower.

[Video][Website]
[4.15]

Will Adams: In which Sigma reach the dreaded Cascada Threshold, the point at which each subsequent song drives the artist’s signature style further into the ground.
[3]

David Sheffieck: I feel like I’ve heard this exact song from Sigma at least three times now, and if it was genuinely angering when they were ripping off “Bound 2,” “Higher” is at least less morally and artistically bankrupt. But if this is more original, it’s also nowhere near as hooky — and a vocal track from Labrinth that strives for soulful and ends up nasal doesn’t help.
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: This is the establishment of an identifiable sound. The end-of-the-tunnel bursts into the chorus are pretty much the same as the ones from “Changing”, and if you shift that song’s optimism around for ominousness, you’re halfway there. It’s part of what Labrinth seemed to aim for with “Let It Be”, only far less adventurous, and that is Sigma’s main problem.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Just what I need, Gnarls Barkley arena drum and bass with no hard drums and no bass. If anything, this is the sound of freebase music, garden food shovelers convincing themselves they have soul. The Pope’s on a good swing with the PR these days; I hope he makes a statement about stopping fake gospel-soul in pop. Or maybe Sigma and Labrinth can get smote live on stage. That’d warm my cold atheist heart.
[0]

Alfred Soto: Sounds like someone heard “Jesus Walks” in 2004, loved it, and kept the demoed percussion track.
[3]

Mo Kim: A case for simple, effective songwriting: two verses and two choruses are enough to get the song’s point across. A clear division between stompy Mumfordite verses and frenetic choruses, Labrinth’s voice conveying resolve and desperation as two sides of a coin. Problem is, the song ends up embodying its speaker’s problems, content to go higher and higher but never high enough. One bonus point for the month of New England sludge this song is getting me through.
[7]

Madeleine Lee: I want this to be the soundtrack for a training montage. I don’t want it badly enough to take up a sport.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Oh boy, a contest between who can be more dramatic, the drum ‘n’ bass bit or the singing.
[3]

Iain Mew: It’s a collaboration and song which feels like it’s sprung into existence out of inevitability, an all-too-logical next step for both, carved out of what came before. The intro of malevolent humming promises some kind of surprise, but they ascend out of its reach like it wasn’t there.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Though this blasts out of the gate with a solid, ambitious rise of soul and house, and the rise is delightful, at three minutes it feels like it doesn’t quite get where it should be going.
[3]

Ian Mathers: At least in the radio edit, a full third of the song is wayyyy too long for the intro; the song could have thrown us right into the beat and it would have been fine. Labrinth is a bigger singer than some of these tracks get, and that helps too; but right now, this feels pretty middle of the pack, and these days that’s a fairly crowded place to be.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Ugh, I’m so easy with pop d’n’b. “Higher” is basic but big, the kind of IMAX existentialism that you pretty much can’t get outside of the charts. Labrinth isn’t a nimble vocalist, and he’s mostly howling here, but it tracks with the mood — he’s thrashing to stay above water.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: It’s still too early in pop for another “WHAT IS LOVE?” chorus. And if anyone’s earned it anyway, it certainly isn’t goddamn Sigma.
[4]