[8][9] To promote the song, the group performed the tune on KEXP,[7] The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,[10] CBS Saturday Morning,[11] and NPR's Tiny Desk Concert.
[12] Rachel Brodsky at Stereogum observed that, along with other pre-release singles from Blue Rev, the song "captures the group’s 12-string shimmer while layering on wall-of-sound feedback, dizzy synth effects, and cymbal-soaked drumming.
"[2] At MTV, Patrick Hosken viewed it as "one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard," calling it "as hopeful as a winter sunrise [...] it's a beautiful and jarring bit of pop music that sounds like a cassette warping in a malfunctioning Walkman.
"[14] Paste's Ben Salmon considered it "perfect,"[15] while Spin's Bobby Olivier found it "hooky" but "too scuffed up by heavy guitar fuzz.
Writer Jamieson Cox praised the song: Alvvays frontwoman Molly Rankin recently cited the Canadian short story master Alice Munro as an influence, noting the way the writer’s work can “knock the wind out of you.” Rankin and her band offer their own bracing wallop with "Belinda Says," a heartbreaking sketch of an unexpected pregnancy that’s also a modern power-pop classic.
She only needs one line to render vivid scenes: a warm vodka cooler chugged behind a hockey rink, a tense phone call with a would-be father, a forlorn move to the countryside soundtracked by Belinda Carlisle’s "Heaven Is a Place on Earth."