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Artist: Hot Chip
Album: One Life Stand
Released: 1st February 2010.
Label: Parlophone.
Genre: "Electropop", "Electronica".
When you type London electronic band Hot Chip’s name in to the Last.Fm music site or Wikipedia you invariably notice the hilarious genres.
Along with Delphic, they’re classed as “indietronica” and “alternative dance”; apparently.
But don’t be deterred by the behaviour of adolescent internet junkies and the music press.
Hot Chip have a style of their own.
Substance though has been added on their latest record, One Life Stand.
Released on February 1st, the five-piece’s fourth album is according to lead vocalist Alexis
Taylor, “the most warm and soulful sounding record we’ve made.”
And it is hard to disagree with Mr Taylor.
From the opening synthetic disco-tinged pomp of Thieves In The Night – which resonates with a warm, clattering Giorgio Moroder/Kraftwerk style equivalent to Goldfrapp, Lady Gaga and Royksopp’s modern output – to chiming piano, steely drums and R&B vocals harnessed by synth bass, brass and strings of next track, Hand Me Down Your Love, the upbeat and precise electro-vibe is alluring.
Indeed 2008’s offering, Made In The Dark, only produced one decent track, Ready For The Floor.
Otherwise the album was a quirky, experimental and mostly erratic littering of drivel.
But listening to the soaring almost symphonic house strings and beats of I Feel Better – which compares to the epic Pet Shop Boys orchestral-arranged dance single, Left To My Own Devices – the witty lyrics of the effervescent title track, One Life Stand and the whirring fizz of synthesizer adding to profound vocal delivery and poetry on Brothers, Hot Chip have certainly come of age.
Albeit, One Life Stand is more precise and mainstream than its predecessor. It needed to be.
For a supposed “electropop” group owing to the 1980s and heroes New Order et al, there were not many pop songs, tuneful sing-along choruses or pleasant melodies on the last album.
But this latest offering is full of the above, bound to make you dance, contemplate lyrically and fizz with soulful excitement all in equal measure, with strings and piano a welcome addition.
So despite a tendency to whine like any good “indie/alternative” band can and to produce output considered “groundbreaking” but often similar to the last “groundbreaking” record – think Bloc Party’s Intimacy, MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular or Royksopp’s Melody A.M. – Hot Chip have melded tuneful synthesizers with profound and precise songwriting.
Already a sure-fire hit along with Delphic's Acolyte for best electronic album of the year.
