Weekly > Reviews
Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
Hot Chip are a strange little band, similar to The Young Knives they have a deceptive image that doesn’t give you an insight of what to expect from them musically, while The Young Knives would definitely be geography teachers, Hot chip would more than likely be science teachers…in essence they are geeks.
Image though is not the important factor at stake here, it is after all music (something the NME could do to remember) and few bands have shown such development and progress across three albums as these five lads have.
Debut album Coming On Strong, was full of ideas and experimentation but lacked a cohesive feel to it and while you had to applaud the way they played with song structures, it was memorable only for a small number of tracks. Few then expected the band to return with The Warning in 2006, collecting a Mercury nomination and containg three brilliant singles, it wasn’t the finished article but it hinted at a bright future.
The bright future is starting to shine like a gestapo lamp in your face now though as Made In The Dark is their strongest album to date, it may only have one song that has killer track status (Ready For The Floor) but the supporting cast of songs really do give the album key structure and consistency, that will make it the coffee table album of 2008.
It opens with an elongated intro, the equivelent of feedback if this was a guitar album moves onto the jerky pop of Shake A Fist (that could be a potential single) and then the brilliant single kicks in. My favourite track on the album is up next (Bendable Poseable) and then the pace slows with We’re Looking For A Lot Of Love.
- Hot Chip
- Made In The Dark (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: EMI
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 10 Mar 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
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Add to favouritesThey continue to play with the tempo, bringing you back up with Touch Too Much and then again slows with the beautiful title track. This continues over the second half of the album with dance beats mixing with synths to create textured ryhthms on tracks like Hold On and Wrestlers.
I still feel despite the praise i’ve heaped on this album that there is even more to come from them yet, it’s not the classic album of this year that some people have made it out to be, but it is a classy, solid step in the right direction for a band that are really growing into themselves now.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
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