(CNN) — Fans will have to wait a bit for the new James Bond film, but at least they can listen to the theme song.
Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” was released on Spotify on Friday. The singer co-wrote the tune with Jimmy Napes.
The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis reviewed the single and found it similar to an “X Factor ballad,” especially in comparison to Adele’s theme for the 2012 Bond film, “Skyfall.”
As the writer points out, it’s easy to make the comparison since the new song is “sung by Sam Smith — like Adele — a British vocalist who’s stormed America with an album mired in heartbreak.”
Yet Petridis opines that the new tune doesn’t quite measure up to “Skyfall,” which won an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.
“There’s something quite bold about a male singer using a Bond theme to convey vulnerability — you need a high falsetto threshold to get through the whole thing — but the melody doesn’t dig into your brain: you keep expecting it to arrive at a showstopping chorus that never comes,” he writes.
The new James Bond film, “Spectre,” hits theaters on November 6.
