Jared Skinner: The Heavy return from their near four-year hiatus with a video of their new single that will instantly be recognized and welcomed by fans. “Since You Been Gone” is good clue that the Heavy’s own distinct blend of jazz, funk, rock ‘n’ roll and soul will be prominent on their upcoming album. The music video accompanying the track is an intriguing, voyeuristic look into the nature of struggling relationships and difficult decisions that features intelligent color scheming and direction. It serves to add a deeper level of thoughtfulness to the track to keep it from being not just another catchy single. Overall, another welcome creation, and something we’ve come to expect from the British neo-soul group that makes their new album even more anticipated. [6/10]
Chris Ingalls: Not a Kelly Clarkson cover, and — perhaps even more disappointingly — not a Rainbow cover. It seems like only yesterday that these British soul/rock stompers were on every single TV show and commercial with the muscular Stax/Volt update “How You Like Me Now”. While not quite up to the level of that song, “Since You’ve Been Gone” still delivers a hell of a punch. It’s a powerful, drum-heavy groove, complete with scratchy rhythm guitars, a fat horn section, and a dramatic bridge that gooses the song into its final free-fall. [7/10]
Emmanuel Elone: “Since you’ve been gone”, “The raindrops won’t stop falling”, and “all I find is blues” are just some of the overused, rehashed lyrics that fill out this song. There’s not that much interesting about this song; the instrumentation is generic, the vocals are decent, and the lyrics are stale. The problem that the Heavy faces on this song is that lost love has been done by dozens of pop artists, and a few have actually also named those songs “Since You Been Gone”. He doesn’t bring anything new to the table, nor does he elevate the song above its rivals. All that the Heavy delivered on this is a bland, uninspired track that only makes me want to turn it off and listen to some Kelly Clarkson. [4/10]
Chad Miller: Feels so stagnant throughout. The verse is fine, but the only contrast the chorus provides is by making the lyrics even less interesting. “Since you’ve been gone” is repeated so many times that it starts to feel like an unfinished dependent clause. The bridge is a nice change of pace though leading to a satisfying ending. [6/10]
Pryor Stroud: The Heavy are garage/soul demolitionists that tirelessly sublimate their romantic misery into teeth-gritting, pyrotechnic blues rock. Their music throws up ramshackle walls — brick upon mortar upon brick — just to smash through them and stomp on the debris left behind. Lashing out with a highly combustible fusion of Stax-era R&B and the juiced-up punk of MC5, they are far from sonically ambitious, but their sound has a distinctly visceral appeal — it seizes you, pulls you in by the collar, despite your muttered protestations that this is all too derivate to deserve your attention. “Since You Been Gone”, in exactly this way, clambers above mere mediocrity: it goes for the jugular, feverishly and without reservation, its pounce rallied along by Kelvin Swaby’s gut-tensing yet audibly wounded wail. “Since you been gone / Since you been gone,” he repeats in the chorus, but he never finishes his sentence, leaving you wondering what he’s really capable of when left this brokenhearted. [5/10]
SCORE: 5.60