Music Review: Hot Chip Go All Smorgasbord On Made In The Dark

Hot Chip are obviously aware of their transition from fan to fame - everything on new album Made In The Dark sounds capital B bigger. Opener "Out At The Pictures" was recorded as a full band (not normal for Hot Chip), and you can tell it's expressly written for gigging. The proggy synth intro, Austin Powers car chase melody, and big finish portend huge things for the "follow-up" LP. There's not much on display to counter that for around 20 minutes, as tracks like "Shake A Fist", "Bendable Posable", and self-proclaimed 'big gay disco record' "Ready For The Floor" throw down a challenge to the listener: want to dance your ass off? Well here you go. The production is more Ibiza than lo-fi home studio, and you can tell the band wanted to aurally punch people in the face with the record's front end. "Ready For The Floor" is especially solid - the techno base to the song meshes perfectly with multiple layers of synths, warm vocals, and the occasional siren. We'll give the song the compliment that with female vocals, it could easily pass for a great new Madonna single. (In fact, there were erroneous reports it was written for Kylie Minogue.)

The album then takes a sharp turn about 1/3 of the way in, as Hot Chip decide to play a power ballad. "We're Looking For A Lot Of Love" sounds like something from mid-'80s radio a la Simply Red or Thompson Twins, but with a killer bassline and spare but pretty guitars. It's a huge surprise, but a pleasant relief after the album's aggressive start. The rest of the record follows a vaguely soft/loud pattern, where big productions like "Hold On" alternate with ballads ("Made In The Dark") or quirky pop ("Wrestlers").

The louder songs falter a bit toward the end - not because they're poor, but because the record is such an aggressive listen, it's tough to maintain the intensity Hot Chip asks of themselves and the listener. Of the tracks, two are standouts. "One Pure Thought" provides a nice pace change with the band's most overt use of rock guitar, while "Wrestlers" is the humor high point of the record (it compares love to a wrestling match in winking fashion). The record's final two songs are beautiful, but don't really fit the tonality of the album. Both are slow, sleepy, and romantic, and neither sounds like anything else on Made In The Dark - they're more Bacharach or quiet Elvis Costello in tone. It feels like the band grew attached to these songs, but couldn't bear to make them bigger or louder, so they just appended them to the end of the disc. That said, they're crackin' tunes, and are oddly effective at dropping the listener off at the end of a long journey.

There are three themes running though Made In The Dark's DNA. First, Hot Chip think about songs, not albums - they are the iPod generation, even if they're vinyl nerds who DJ. The focus on the individual song is both admirable and occasionally troublesome, as this strong collection of tracks occasionally feels thrown together like a compilation. We're not sure there's a better running order; rather, this is just a pretty wide swath of material. It also feels like Hot Chip may have been plugging holes in their live set during the songwriting process, which would be quite sensible given The Warning's success and the incessant roadwork that resulted from it. It won't be surprising if the 2008 Hot Chip live show feels more diverse and rounded than any one album, because they now have more tempos and styles to pick from. Filtering the album through this lens, the scope and sometime bombast of the material makes a lot more sense. Finally, while they've toned down the "break your legs" gangsta bravado from the last album, Hot Chip are still great songwriters. They do still make the occasional joke (the "I've got a roll of coins - I'm aiming for your loins" and "Here we come - drop kick! Half nelson! Full Nelson! Willie Nelson!...Wilie Nelson!" lines in "Wrestlers" make us laugh out loud), but more often, Hot Chip are being reasonably straightforward here, and it works. This is very encouraging.

While it may not quite hit The Warning's high points, Made In The Dark does successfully showcase Hot Chip's range, potential, and craftsmanship. In an era where bands come and go by the month, it's nice to see a hugely talented but eccentric band find the audience they need to feed their creativity and growth. Here's to what is, and what may be to come.