ELECTRO-POP WIZARDS DELIVER CRACKING THIRD ALBUM
After 2008’s relatively disappointing Made In The Dark (a fine album, but still a bit of a let-down after the sheer brilliance of The Warning), UK five-piece Hot Chip are back on track with this fourth long-player. While Made In The Dark sounded like a random selection of decent songs, there’s a well-rounded cohesiveness to the 10 numbers on One Life Stand that suggests the band have deliberately eschewed wilfully zany eclecticism and concentrated instead on delivering an album’s worth of solidly soulful pop perfection.
While you can still dance to it (indeed, it’d be hard not to), there’s a humanity and a melancholia to One Life Stand that was notably absent from their last release. The title track, and lead single, is arguably one of the best things they’ve ever done – balancing strutting in-yer-face verses and spiky synths with a warm and genuinely soulful chorus. After Joe Goddard’s Kanye-esque AutoTuned verses, Alexis Taylor’s melodramatically sung chorus on ‘I Feel Better’ is almost better. With sawing violins, pulsing keyboards and eerie backing vocals, the brilliant ‘Alley Cats’ will surely be a hit single (when the three vocalists co-harmonise on the line “There is no pain I don’t know,” you really share it).
Ultimately, with this fine return to form, Hot Chip have never sounded hotter. Groovy, eccentric and genuinely soulful, this is a One Life Stand you definitely won’t regret.
OLAF TYARANSEN
KEY TRACK: ‘SLUSH’
We have the day-by-day breakdown for the Dublin festival.
Read More
A 2012 chat with Alexis Taylor in which our man Ed Power dares to ask him about his band's geeky dress sense...
Read More Why Make Sense? is scheduled for a summer release.
Read More
They’re the brainy electro stalwarts whose smart, emotive music look set to weather the ages. Whatever you do, though, don’t mention the ‘N-’ word to Hot Chip .
Read More
‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ and ‘I Feel Better’ get a sonic makeover
Read More This exclusive track is available to download for free
Read More Hot Chip get behind the decks at Limerick's Trinity Rooms next week.
Read More Hot Chip are to precede their Oxegen festival appearance with a headlining show in Dublin next month.
Read More "...in almost every respect, Made In The Dark is an immaculately poised record, the poptronica super geeks at last striking the perfect balance between head and heart..."
Read More From electro curios to feted songwriters, it’s been a long strange trip for Hot Chip. And they’re just warming up.
Read More The secret to Hot Chip’s success – apart from the fact that they are pretty good – is their understanding that the chorus is key. The nagging refrain on ‘My Piano’ doesn’t quite match up to previous hits, but combined with the rolling old-school piano, lo-fi low-end and Art of Noise stabs, it works. The spazzed-out dub doffs a cap to Audion.
Read More The Pet Shop Boys-headlined knees-up has gotten bigger and better, with the confirmation of new acts.
Read More New kids on the dance-block Hot Chip are gearing up for an Electric Picnic stormer.
Read More The synth-rock (or electro-indie if you like) bedroom ascetics – who heretofore brought you the charming line “I’m like Stevie Wonder, but I can see things” – have by their own acknowledgement looted the mechanical music museum, spending a lifetime distilling their record collection into manageable, tongue-in-cheek precipitates like whiskey or MSG.
Read More Hot Chip are marvelous and I don’t care what you think. The world suffers a disgraceful shortage of indie-rock bands who wish they were techno heroes (Soul Wax...erm...) and Hot Chip are a welcome addition. One itsy-bitsy criticism – the song suffers a threadbare chorus. Window-lick beats and a yammering melody mean we’re prepared to forgive a lot, however.
Read More Poised between the understated electro-sounds of LCD Soundsystem and the playfulness of The Chalets, London’s Hot Chip have struck gold with the lead single from new album The Warning. Like its name implies, the track makes an art out of monotony. There are no inspiring middle eights or climatic finishes. Instead, the same mid-tempo beats are slowly drummed into our heads, before its subtle end, when we wake up from our trance, dust ourselves off and walk away, oddly content.
Read MoreFor information including benefits, key facts, figures and rates for advertising with Hot Press, click below
Advertise 
