Hot ChipIn Our Heads
Domino Records [2012]
Fire Note Says: Hot Chip’s new album will get stuck in your head!
Album
Review:
I
don’t typically like dance music, but there are a few artists that I have
enjoyed over the years, particularly LCD Soundsystem, The Juan MacLean and
recently The Chromatics. I picked up Hot Chip’s 2006 album, The Warning, simply because of the DFA
Records connection, and I liked quite a bit of it, but not really enough to
keep following them. What I did like though was that along with the dance
beats, there were actual songs there, and In Our Heads has all of that and then
some.
What
separates In Our Heads from most
electro pop records is the songs. To these ears, it sounds like Hot Chip is a
pop band using electronic dance music as the vehicle to get their songs across,
and the songs are spectacular! Instantly familiar and recognizable like a
modern day Pet Shop Boys or Information Society, this album is full of
should’ve been radio hits, that perhaps would have been in the 1980’s.
This
is a joyful and uplifting record, it’s impossible to be in a bad mood and
listen to this record. “Night and Day”, with its Bernie Worrell-esque keyboard
squiggles and catchy hooks is like probably the catchiest song on here, with a
callout to funk legend Zapp! This is a record from a different time, it has to
be! This was not a record I expected to really love, but I find myself playing
it all the time. Looks like I will be going back and digging around the Hot
Chip back catalog to see what other treasures I can unearth!
Key
Tracks: “Don’t Deny Your Heart”, “Night and Day”, “How Do You Do?”
Bands
With Similar Fire:
Pet
Shop Boys
New
Order
The
Juan MacLean
-Reviewed by Kevin Poindexter
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