British electropop band Hot Chip has gone from meager beginnings in the lo-fi basements of London to garnering all sorts of acclaim and attention from critics.
Hot Chip's seemingly overriden genre has had room for one more star - a role they were only too glad to fill. Their debut, Coming on Strong, started the band out more slowly, sounding more like R&B than electronic pop, but more was to come.
Hot Chip's 2005 album The Warning was heralded as the band's best yet, as they moved into more streamlined, coherent and poppy beats and melodies.
Now, with their new Made in the Dark, they seem to have found their groove and stuck with it. The album runs with the best of the The Warning's stylings, commendable - but not quite perfect- results.
The fun, more-than-danceable "Ready For The Floor" stands out as the album's most powerful and accessible single. Also in the "let's talk about dancing in the titles" school is "Bendable Posable," again delivering a powerfully bass-y beat, complimented by Alexis Taylor's falsetto.
It is impossible to obey "Don't Dance," or at the very least, some head-bobbing and foot-tapping will result. This track exemplifies what is a theme on the album: Once you think you've gotten past the intro and into the main groove of the song, Hot Chip throws in a new twist to the beat, grabbing your attention all over again.
Not that everything here is a poppy, radio-ready dance hit. Hot Chip gets plenty quirky on "Shake a Fist." The song is interrupted midway through, and a voice directly addresses the listener, instructing him to "get out his headphones," among other things (a good suggestion, truth be told). If one does as he is told, the resulting sonic playground is rewarding.
"One Pure Thought" maintains the high energy of the previously mentioned tracks, but the beat ends up being more of a groove than a pulsing dance beat.
Joining "One Pure Thought" in groove is "Wrestlers," again taking the tempo and the bass down a bit, but without losing Hot Chip's signature playfulness.
The title track joins the final two, "Whistle For Will" and "In The Privacy O' Our Love" in an odd departure from the rest of the album. Where the rest of the record is dominated by get-out-of-your-chair beats, these three can best be described as slow and balladic.
Perhaps they would be aceptable on their own, but as part of Made in the Dark, they are only disappointing comedowns from the album's otherwise high energy.
Altogether, despite the aforementioned hiccups, almost every track on Made in the Dark gets your toes tapping or elicits an appreciate smirk. So, everything's hunky-dory, right?
Not quite. While the formula set up by The Warning was a good one, it did allow Hot Chip to take their music somewhere else - perhaps exploring some more complex tunes, or reaching further into the world of dance music and requiring the listener to get out on the floor rather than just tap his toes.
But they didn't. Perhaps this isn't too bad: Made in the Dark is a winning album, regardless. It might even contain some the most enjoyable singles yet from Hot Chip (excepted is their cover of "Sexual Healing," which I highly recommend).
However, Made in the Dark is nothing revolutionary. This band clearly has more than enough talent for a truly epic album - one that, we hope, is still forthcoming.
