I Only Want....

There should be no wonder Hot Chip can make one swoon in an instant: every dreamy loop and every quirky vocal charms you. Their laid back approach to music makes them an electro band for the bedroom and not the dancefloor. They add a heavy dose of emotion so that they give electronica a big pounding heart.

With Thieves In The Night, it’s obvious Hot Chip aren’t using a different recipe for the new album One Life Stand. Guitars that clash with synths while Alexis Taylor sings “Happiness is what we all want” only to make you take off those shoes, put on some cozy slippers and maybe have a cup of tea with your new best friend.

Hand Me Down Your Love’s almost Spoon-like piano and robotic vocals see the guys take out one of their best weapons: those quirky sensual beats that remind one of how white they are and how cool they are. And an Auto Tune used with a shitload of brain cells makes I Feel Better an instant slow-disco anthem. Pop music that sounds too good to ever make it into the mainstream charts this is.

I Feel Better’s lyrics are all but a prelude to the title track, One Life Stand. “I only want one night” morphs into “I only wanna be your one life stand” and Hot Chip veer into a sound that reminds one of The Warning days. But what is so delicious about the track is how it coyly builds up in the beginning and then the chorus takes it to a whole new level.

Brothers knows how to take you back to those slippers and that cup of tea and maybe make you feel a bit teary with all its cheesy lyrics and dreamy textures. And then Hot Chip hit you with Slush or the way they understand the concept of a ballad. It’s maybe weird this one is here as it sort of cuts though the energy of the album but it’s a good piece nonetheless.

With Alley Cats they trick you this is a Kings Of Convenience song only to insert little bits of electro along the way that remind you what’s it all about. And then Hot Chip throw you into a very Simian Mobile Disco world as they put together the layers of We Have Love, one song that calls for singing along and dancing on the beach at five in the morning.

But as Keep Quiet kicks in, they get back to their usual selves: dreamy guitars, sharp synths, high-pitched vocals intertwined with low-pitched ones, music that seems to have been written by black guys but sang by white dudes. Ending track Take It In should’ve, could’ve been part of Made In The Dark: sort of dark (shocking, I know), sort of sinister, bleeps that surround you. But the chorus seems to be the perfect antithesis: it’s solar and hopeful. There is even a dove mentioned in the lyrics.

One Life Stand is by all means one incredibly well-thought album: it’s pure Hot Chip but never boring nor repetitive. They manage to reinvent themselves without actually leaving their bubbly world or giving up being nerds. And they manage to make pop music with a brain and a heart, which, yes, is what they got us used to.