Hot Chip
One Life Stand

While the capricious, erratic behaviour of musical mavericks like Neil Young and Bob Dylan might enthral their followers, it's always nice when a recording artist behaves in a rather more sensible, rational way. Five-piece pop act Hot Chip are a case in point. From the listener's perspective, it seems as if Hot Chip have behaved rather like a customer services-orientated business: they've listened to their customers' complaints, and they've sought to remedy their faults.

To explain: Hot Chip's last album, 2008's Made In The Dark, was a good record (it would certainly represent an all-time career best for Black Eyed Peas) but it never quite delivered the pop perfection promised by its predecessor album The Warning and its superlative lead-off single, Ready For The Floor. Made In The Dark was a purposely eclectic record, veering from the hyperactive disco of Hold On to ultra-sparse ballads like In The Privacy Of Our Love. But the album proved a mild disappointment not because of its all-over-the-place nature but rather because of its dearth of truly compelling songs.

Continued at musicOMH

Ever since Hot Chip started as indie kids seemingly dabbling in classic soul and modern R&B, they've been underestimated (not least of which by us). Delivering lines about "20-inch rims" and "Yo La Tengo" in a proper English accent, as they did on their 2005 debut, can have that effect. Yet on their two subsequent records-- 2006's The Warning and 2008's Made in the Dark-- Hot Chip steadily rebuilt their reputation by toughening up their sophistipop side. Their melodies began to develop an itchy, nervous twitch, and they earned dancefloor credibility through an association with DFA.

Best of all, Hot Chip crafted some of the sneakiest and most effective earworms around-- songs that seem deceptively simple and assuming on first listen became year-end list locks by listen number 10. Their quirky detours, winks, and nods were no longer Prince and Stevie Wonder shoutouts; instead, they were subtler, so the band that initially came across as affable goofballs eventually revealed themselves to be the smartest guys in the room. In short, after a half-decade of having our expectations challenged and any hesitations about them erased, it finally felt like we knew who Hot Chip were. But their fourth album, One Life Stand, changes things a bit. After dialing back some of their eccentricities, their latest feels if anything even more likely to be underestimated.

Continued at Pitchfork