Hot Chip - In Our Head

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 10 / 7 / 2012

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Hot Chip's fifth album is certain to cement them in their place as the UK's premier electronic pop band. It brings another set of polished arrangements of bleeps, chirps, and bass lines salted with floating vocals and harmonies. ‘In Our Heads’ opens gloriously. 'Motion Sickness' builds a classic example of this band's ability to make deep and catchy tunes right from the baffling and sotto voce opening line '”Remember when the world was round'.” But every other song from Hot Chip now seems to be about love and celebrating the power of dancing. Valid sentiments maybe, but their ubiquity create a yearning for the band that referenced Kraft Dinners as reminders of lost love and produced a bonafide anthem about cruising in that most uncool of cars, the Volvo. Over their history Hot Chip have more and more embraced their pop roots, meaning that 'Don't Deny Your Heart' sounds like a genuine lost number from the synth laden depths of the 80s pop charts. It throws everything into the mix from a bongo interlude to the requisite vocal platitudes but lacks the soul that this band is perfectly capable of fusing with its electronic playfulness. With these tracks it is hard to shake the feeling though that a band that used to make interesting songs that just happened to be great pop tunes is now deliberately aiming for the later at the expense of the former. In polishing themselves up for their deservedly huge success, they often seem to have rubbed away something vital. By contrast, 'Look at Where We Are' is by far the musically simplest track here and all the better for it. At the other end of this album's musical spectrum, single 'Night and Day' has an awesome bass track, but can't do much more with it than instruct listeners to sweat. The main reason these missteps are so galling to the listener is that when the band do get everything in place they what they produce is unmistakable, and wonderful. And any disappointments here are washed clear away by 'Flutes'. This presents all that Hot Chip can be, rising from an unintelligible sample and deceptively simple sounding backing track into a monster of a song. It is the closest your inner ears will get to a massage this year.

Track Listing:-

1 Motion Sickness
2 How Do You Do?
3 Don't Deny Your Heart
4 Look At Where We Are
5 These Chains
6 Night And Day
7 Flutes
8 Now There Is Nothing
9 Ends Of The Earth
10 Let Me Be Him
11 Always Been Your Love

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/hotchip
https://twitter.com/hot_chip
https://www.instagram.com/hot.chip/
https://www.youtube.com/user/HotChipVEVO

Label Links:-

http://www.dominorecordco.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DominoRecordCo
https://twitter.com/DominoRecordCo
https://www.youtube.com/user/DominoRecords
https://plus.google.com/+DominoRecords

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