The first four notes give it away instantly: this is Billie Eilish’s Ocean Eyes rebuilt as a melodic dubstep weepie, with Elle Vee carrying a topline that everyone within earshot already knows by heart. WHOiSEE and ARKIIN wrap it in the full festival-melodic treatment, a breakdown that swells like a held breath and a drop made of those gleaming detuned saws that have become the default house style for this whole corner. It is polished and pretty, and it never once takes a risk. Elle Vee sings it well, but the arrangement does nothing the original melody was not already doing better at a tenth of the volume. The drop is where it earns its keep, a genuinely big wall of melodic bass that would light up a festival tent at golden hour. Still, there is something a little hollow about taking one of the most intimate songs of the last decade and blowing it up to arena size. It works on the body and leaves the heart exactly where it found it. Fine for the drive, forgotten by the next exit.
January
Chrome Daydream
Chrome stars, jelly hearts and holographic colour. A nod to the glossy, optimistic graphics of the early web.