_____I originally planned on reviewing the new Lostprophets album today, but such are the joys of illegal filesharing that I have got my hands on Hot Chip’s new album a couple of weeks before it’s official release date of February 8th. The fourth instalment from the British electro’s nice guys very much flew in under the radio, with very little advertisement or hype surrounding the run-up to it’s release, but then again, that’s typically Hot Chip innit? Very polite, very reserved, not wanting to force their music on anyone who mightn’t find Hot Chip’s silky sound suiting to their musical appetite, weirdos, I think they’re called. Nono, there was none of that pushy advertising like Frankmusik used to try and promote his, in a word, horseshit, and not even a shneaky internet teaser to wet our taste buds like VW did with Horchata. No, five friends simply wrote some more pleasant electro music, and then announced that people would be able to buy them if they wanted to have a listen. If their music was a world religion practitioner, it’d be a Buddhist monk ; almost enlighteningly relaxing; spiritually soothing; free, yet always in complete control. Hell, these guys even put manners on Late Of The Pier.
___However, their music shares another trait with Buddhism in that it’s pretty darn popular, so One Life Stand was never going to stay a secret for long. I first caught wind of the Good News just a few weeks back, when, flicking through the music channels, I came across something most odd. MTV Two weren’t playing Sickeningly Sweet Disposition. Shock horror. No, instead, I heard the dulcet tones of one Alexis Taylor.
_____The title track is the first single from the album, and I like it. It’s nothing too fancy, nothing too unexpected, and everything you know a Hot Chip single to be. It’s catchy, but not so much that it’ll annoy the fuck out of you when it’s stuck in your head all day. It’s ever so slightly different to what we’ve heard on previous records of theirs, but not so little that it doesn’t sound fresh. It’s just right. In the “Goldilocks Zone“, to make use of a term coined by NASA in relation to those environments which are not too hot and not too cold sufficient to that they could sustain life. A beautiful compliment to any song I’d have thought, but unusually fitting for one from Hot Chip.
___So off to a healthy start, I launched into the rest of the album. Well, more glided into, “launched” suggests reckless eagerness, so not Hot Chip. And, much like previous fashions, there’s a good assortment of songs to casually dance to, songs to chill out with, and songs to just downright bask in. I’d imagine you’ll be hearing the mellow trance-like We Have Love on indie dance floors everywhere within a matter of months, albeit most likely some thrashy bass-enhanced remix. I’d recommend, if you’re feeling incensed at those air-controllers’ selfish striking antics, a nice cup of cocoa along with the therapeutic Alley Cats to calm that raging urge to write a letter to The Irish Times. And, no matter where you are or what you’re doing at any given time, you’d most likely be in a better overall life-situation if you were listening to I Feel Better instead. Just bassk.
_____There is, of course, one or two iffy songs, that just don’t work. Now I’m not quite sure what it is that makes the good stuff work, but I do know that Slush just doesn’t. I could pick a bone with Thieves In The Night if I was feeling particularly narky, but, as I’ve just listened to a Hot Chip album, I’m unsurprisingly in great form, so I won’t. However, as much as I hate to say it, One Life Stand doesn’t extinguish the one criticism I’ve always had about Hot Chip records. In fact, it’s probably worse than it’s predecessors in that it can be terribly samey. Even after two or three listens of the record, you could probably switch Keep Quiet and Brothers and I wouldn’t notice. Also, those tracks which did stand out didn’t do so with quite as much flare as previous big hits, Over & Over, or Ready For The Floor. Those two tracks were both eccentric flagships for their respective albums, showing they could venture outside the traditional Hot Chip box of what they knew worked, and produce what are their two best known tracks.
___Does One Life Stand have one of those mega-selling flagships? Not to the same extent anyways. The two tracks I’ve posted above would be my candidates to lead the fourth Hot Chip movement in extremely pleasant music, but I will say that, despite being a thoroughly enjoyable LP to listen to and review, One Life Stand, for me, is nagged by that dangerous risk of drifting off into the big sea of decent records that were only that, lacking a strong, guiding single to keep it on course to be remembered for something more than the sequel to Made In The Dark. And, of course, equally more than just the prequel to Hot Chip’s fifth, chart-topping, record-breaking, era-defining album. Hopefully.
B3
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