Actual website copy: “There’s a mysterious thread connecting The Weeknd’s dystopic, album-closing ballad ‘Angel’ from Beauty Behind The Madness and Kygo’s electric single ‘Stay’”…

[Video]
[4.25]Katherine St Asaph: The only thing lonelier than having no friends is realizing that you and your friends don’t actually like one another, and that all your relationships are actually just mutual dislike détentes, one honest comment away from disappearing. Such is the situation of “New Friends,” the surprisingly rare track about people whose friendships aren’t a synchronized “New Rules” bestiescape. (After all, pop’s been dreary and angsty for years about love and life, and really about everything but friendship.) Noyes’ complaints range from genuinely alarming to alarming for the wrong reasons (the problem with seeing naked pictures of someone’s ex is consent, not suddenly realizing your buddy doesn’t reproduce via stork) to wildly unreasonable (the “you need to help out with the rent” line, unless it’s about some theretofore-unmentioned roommate, is the grift drive-by commenters think “Bills, Bills, Bills” is about). But at least none of them pull any punches, unlike the singing, which might as well not exist.
[5]

Vikram Joseph: A gooey, featherweight bop about being disappointed by your friends; truthfully, there’s not a great deal going on here, but “I think, I think Drake got it all wrong” is a little moment of excellence, and I will absolutely stick this on a pre-drinks playlist even if I never listen to it again in any other context.
[6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: A bold move to say Drake was “all wrong” and then make a song that’s considerably worse than what he’s been releasing. Does this mean Drake was right all along?
[3]

Ryo Miyauchi: Maty Noyes’ brat pop speaks a lot like her intended audience: adept at social media, cussing on impulse, letting references to pop media finish her thoughts. It’s meant to suggest a no-filter attitude, but doesn’t translate into relatability or rawness. Instead, “New Friends” sounds unpolished, Noyes’ bluntness intruding on the song’s melody and structure.
[4]

Will Rivitz: I’m genuinely shocked Maty Noyes didn’t rise to prominence via YouTube, since “New Friends” has the offhandedly intimate tone of a Tessa Violet single. Walking the lines between cutesy, sardonic, and vicious without ever plunging into overwrought or obnoxious humor, it belies a savvy understanding of humor’s lifespan on the internet, at times genuinely funny and only a little bit cloying. That it’s delivered over what is effectively Weezer’s “Undone” with an anemic trap beat doesn’t particularly push it to excellence, but it was never going to be transcendental.
[6]

Katie Gill: Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could recreate a Melanie Martinez aesthetic now that she’s been effectively #canceled, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
[3]

Iris Xie: The pseudo-reggae of the chorus contrasts with the rest of the arrangement, and it gives off the sensation of being completely confused halfway through. Is Noyes trying to be edgy, smart, sweet, cool, meme-able, hashtaggable, and coy all at the same time?
[3]

Alfred Soto: If she addresses them in that arch singsong, no wonder she needs new friends.
[4]