Big, dumb, and completely irresistible — “Hero” knows exactly what it is. Proximity built its whole channel on this flavour of anthemic electro, and Matt Pridgyn and Pontifexx have delivered a textbook example: a soaring vocal about being someone’s hero, a build that telegraphs the drop from a mile off, and then a drop at 1:12 that lands with all the subtlety of a firework in a phone booth. The lead synth is pure serrated euphoria, the kind that was everywhere around 2015 and has quietly come back into fashion. I’m a sucker for it and I refuse to be embarrassed. What keeps it from being pure nostalgia bait is the vocal performance, which is genuinely committed — no autotuned detachment, just full-throated corn served straight. The second half throws in a half-time switch I didn’t see coming and it’s the best eight bars in the track. This won’t win any awards for innovation, and it isn’t chasing one; it wants a festival crowd with their hands up, and it’ll get one. File under guilty pleasure that I’m not actually guilty about.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.