Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
BBC Music	(mixed)
The Independent	(unfavorable)
In the News	8/10
Kerrang!	KKKK
Metro
The Observer	(unfavorable)
Rock Sound	8/10
The Skinny
Sputnikmusic	3/5

Hold Me Down is the second studio album by English rock band You Me at Six, released on January 11, 2010 through Virgin Records as the follow-up to 2008's Take Off Your Colours. It is the band's first release on the major label Virgin Records. Like their debut album, the album was once again produced and engineered by Matt O'Grady and mixed by David Bendeth. The promotional single titled "The Consequence" was made available for free digital download before the first official lead single, "Underdog" preceded the album's release. Despite receiving mixed reviews, Hold Me Down was a commercial success and debuted at No. 5 on the UK Albums Chart and is certified Gold in the UK for 100,000 shipments of copies.

On 11 November 2009, Josh Franceschi announced via his Twitter account that their second album was completed, and would be released in early 2010.AbsolutePunk.net later announced the album would be titled Hold Me Down and would be released through Virgin Records on 11 January 2010. In interviews leading up to the album's release Josh Franceschi stated the recording process took around 6–7 weeks, as opposed to the 2 weeks of its predecessor, Take Off Your Colours.

They worked again with Matt O'Grady (producer/engineer) and had John Mitchell mix. Bob Ludwig (Radiohead, The Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam) mastered the album after the band had sought a "record that sounded really big on CD". Lyrically and musically, Franceschi believes the album is a step forward for the band: "Well I guess it's mature just because it really is for us, and my side of things, like we really kind of feel like we developed our sound a lot and we took all the good things, or the things we thought were good from Take Off Your Colours and developed them and developed our ideas. And we took a lot more time writing songs which I think was really important, the album like forming the way it did. I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction for our band". He also stated that lyrics on the album were influenced by breaking up with his girlfriend during the last year, as well as problems he has with the modern music industry. "It was very therapeutic because it just kind of allowed me to write and say things that I’d wanted to say about like the music industry itself for a long, long time. I’m happier in the sense that I didn’t put in things that were kind of rude or could be taken wrongly. It’s nothing to do with journalists, is more to do with people involved in it and some of the girls that go to the shows and stuff. It is kind of not really what I want to have anything to do with, so that was really cool. I broke up with my girlfriend just before we went into record it, and so obviously I wanted to avoid writing just about that so I really did try and like look back on my life in the last 12 months and... so yeah... I that I think it worked out pretty well."

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