Adriane Pontecorvo: ODESZA’s “Late Night” is the perfect segue from spring into summer. Airy and free, it wafts between bass hits like a breeze. Ethereal vocal effects add a particular magic to the single, balancing out driving beats with a delicate touch. Even without words, this song inspires, rising on an elevated melody and never looking back. It’s a warm, starlit song full of possibilities, never too heavy to keep going. [9/10]
Steve Horowitz: A light and happy melody that never gets cloying makes this a delightful instrumental. Listening to it on headphones would naturally make the world seem a brighter, shinier place. Sure, nothing really happens. But there are moments that commands attention, so one doesn’t get lost. [7/10]
Mike Schiller: Yeah, I can get behind this. It’s got a great beat, there’s a fuzzy bass guitar that gives it a groove, it builds and pulls back in all the right places, you can dance to it. The video is of the tried-and-true “young people being young and free” genre, basically an audition for the Apple commercial the song is destined for, but it works. It works because it is as un-self-conscious as the song, It works because there’s nothing challenging or abstract about “Late Night”. It’s ready to party, and it wants to make you smile. [8/10]
John Garratt: This may be the song that finally makes people realize that music is being too heavily compressed nowadays. When the wordless falsettos begin to lag behind the beat in the song’s loudest sections, how can one not be distracted? That isn’t to say that we should all throw our samplers and ProTools packages into the trash, but we should at least take a step back and acknowledge that this sort of audio peaking is not normal. As for the song, it’s a mish-mash. The video? Well, I’ve never been one to watch other people having fun. OMG LOLZ! [3/10]
SCORE: 6.75