Your editor is sorry for this in advance. But she looked at the screencap, and now what’s stuck in her head is “five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred kisses…”

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[4.70]Patrick St. Michel: Man, could you imagine if you took this drum ‘n’ bass stuff and made a pop song out of it? That would be wicked!
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Iain Mew: “Afterglow” shows Wilkinson has got his emotional drum ‘n’ bass fundamentals (and Rudimentals) down well, but he doesn’t get beyond them. Former The Voice competitor Becky Hill offers vocal power but isn’t given much to work with. But while “Afterglow” doesn’t stand out as a song, as a hit it stands out through having such a horrible video. The clip’s collection of lazy clichés about young heterosexual relationships told in infographic format looks like the worst Google advert ever, even before the horrific moment when it normalises domestic violence.
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Katherine St Asaph: None of you people told me there was a @UK_dance_ebooks.
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Alfred Soto: The drum ‘n’ bass shuffle sends welcome perk through a rather thick vocal that uncomfortably inhabits a space where it thinks melodrama and pathos can co-exist.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: A piece of melancholy-leaning ruction that can’t keep focused on one feeling: the beat and the vocal disagree with one another, with the former pulsating dead ahead and the latter wavering whilst making sense of the present. Either way, “Afterglow” is intended for dancefloors, judging from its succinct description of “smoke and lasers/love and ravers” during the hook. Intriguingly, those words hit as the drum break ramps up the tension and for a moment, “Afterglow” appears to make clear what it’s about. It’s about the experience of social gatherings, but more so about the rewards afterwards than the joys within, hence the deftly drawn scenes of raving. It is both in the moment and hazily outside: an intriguing single.
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Anthony Easton: The lyrics foreground the tension between what could be seen as placid and what could be seen as manic, suggesting a compromise between the two extremes. However, the song is not better than the concept it is working through.
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Scott Mildenhall: Putting the hollow into holonymy: “smoke and lasers, love and ravers.” “If we just throw those words in,” the writers thought, as Eliza Doolittle chirped away in the background, “then people just must start experiencing the feelings that must come from them”. It’s an idea of emotion, Becky Hill’s vocals an idea of passion and Wilkinson’s production an idea of drum and bass. All of which are perfectly fine.
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Juana Giaimo: Deep piano chords are overused for opening hit singles, but the truth is they are always a good beginning. The issue is how they should be followed.
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Brad Shoup: The d’n’b line just putters about in the background, like an engine your neighbor’s working on. Meanwhile, the pining for a prolonged rave wounds with its omnidirectional need.
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Will Adams: With its flat drum break and sleepy melody, “Afterglow” tries to inspire all-night-long dancing but inadvertently captures how people usually feel after a night at the club: tired.
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