Made In the Dark

　　Before The Warning, Hot Chip was poppy, but not exactly pop; their songs had clever ideas, but were missing the pieces they needed to really make an impact. The Warning brought those pieces together with a satisfying click, making the band's music immediate as well as pleasingly off-kilter. Made in the Dark isn't quite as big a leap forward as The Warning was, but it doesn't need to be -- Hot Chip has already hit their stride, and now their pop machinery chugs along at full speed. Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard's dry wit is illuminated by neon melodies and punctuated by attention-getting beats, as it was on The Warning, but that album had clear-cut singles, including "Over and Over" and "And I Was a Boy from School." Here, it's wonderfully unclear which songs are the A-sides, aside from the brilliant lead single, "Ready for the Floor," which was the first clue that Made in the Dark was going to be something special. It builds from a rubber band bassline, piling nervy guitars, synths that sound like they were borrowed from Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" or Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride," and a cheery yet bittersweet melody into a perfect fusion of pop and dance that is definitely ready for the floor. The rest of Made in the Dark boasts some of Hot Chip's most kinetic music, with rhythms and melodies that are just as hyper-articulate as the wordplay: it takes a special kind of perverse wit to name one of the album's most head-noddingly insistent songs "Don't Dance." "Bendable Poseable," on the other hand, is exactly as wiggly as the title implies, and its ragga-tinged spoken word bits show that Hot Chip's sound is more than bendable enough to accommodate almost any styles or influences that Taylor and Goddard want to fit into it.
　　Made in the Dark expands Hot Chip's emotional range as much as their musical range, swinging from the funky, pissed-off "Shake a Fist" to the stream-of-consciousness pop of "One Pure Thought," a witty, wordy gem that comes across like Paul McCartney backed by New Order. Made in the Dark's main weakness might be its ballads, but that may just be in comparison to its many energetic moments, which are so addictive that it feels like a forced come-down whenever the band slows things down. On their own terms, however, "We're Looking for a Lot of Love" is luminously sad, and the title track's heartfelt simplicity and restraint is impressive. And while "Whistle for Will" and "In the Privacy of Our Love" end the album on a strangely sleepy note, their awkwardness might make them a little sweeter precisely because they're not slick. Without these ballads, Made in the Dark would have the ruthless perfection of a greatest-hits collection; as it is, it's just a very, very good album. Hot Chip has honed their skills so much and so quickly that they're almost unrecognizable from the band that made Coming on Strong just three years before. They're still a quirky band, no doubt, but now they're using those quirks to make their most accomplished album to date.
　　Rating: 4 stars (Album Pick)
　　source: allmusic.com
　　It's tough not to admire a band that can work an affection for Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, R. Kelly and WWF icon Jerry "the King" Lawler into a hot club track — let alone do it with couplets like "I've got a roll of coins/I'm aiming for your loins." The best dysfunctional-lovers jam since Joe Nichols' "Let's Get Drunk and Fight," "Wrestlers" epitomizes what makes this quintet the sharpest dance rockers this side of their pals LCD Soundsystem: catchy tunes, monster grooves, and lyrics resolving the heartfelt and the smartass. Words are irrelevant on "Shake a Fist," a dance-floor killer about fame (or maybe drugs) with a head-exploding synth breakdown. But just when you're ready to dismiss Hot Chip as impressively snarky club brats, they uncork a drop-dead ballad like thetitle track, all sublime classic-soul guitar licks and choirboy vocal harmonies. "Since I stole this song, we have made a new start," croons Alexis Taylor, unable to avoid cracking wise amid serious sentiments about the sex/love chasm. It's like a wink in an IM.
　　Will Hermes
　　Rating: 4 stars
　　source: Rolling Stone
　　The received wisdom on London's Hot Chip is that they're equal opportunity funsters who'll pinch from any old genre in the name of a grin. But after the potent combination of "Over and Over", "Boy From School", and all the attendant remixes increased their festival bill font size by about 20 points, there was good reason to believe that the London quintet's next record might find them rectifying their cartoonish pop into something sleeker and more streamlined. They might have, for instance, decided to expand on the soul and R&B influences that occasionally pepper their music; or to smoothen the undanceable rumples of their creaky, short-circuited pop with a few well-placed blasts of minimal techno; or maybe, to topple their previous output with an even more dazzling pastiche of color, candy, and complexity.
　　Any one of those paths would have served Hot Chip well. But of all of their many virtues, focus isn't one, and instead they took them all. A string of self-conscious interruptions, perfect pop moments, show-offy sonics, and inscrutable non-sequiturs, the lovable but flawed Made in the Dark has moments that come off as almost gluttonous-- and that's even by Hot Chip's standards. And while the majority of the material here ranges somewhere between inoffensive and fantastic, momentarily obnoxious misfires (the funhouse mirror horrorshow "Bendable Poseable", the impish "Don't Dance", and the weirdly overrated "Shake a Fist") underscore why "all of the above" is not a tenable long-term formula for the band: That level of consumption can't stay charming forever.
　　Which is to say that Hot Chip have a big record in them and this isn't it. Once you do away with that disappointment, though, there's plenty to appreciate. There might not be anything as definitive or as moment-making as "Over and Over" or "Boy From School" here, but once you've acclimatized to Made in the Dark's sonic trills and party poppers, some affecting songs emerge. On the pop side, none are as lovable as the tender-hearted electro of "Ready for the Floor", in which the band once again finds comfortable middle ground between Alexis Taylor's balladesque vocal and vibrant, electro-pop dressing. Elsewhere, the feelgood "Touch Too Much" cruises by on a big chorus and some characteristically clattering percussions, while the infectious "One Pure Thought" opens against a backdrop of gnarled guitar chords and keening synths.
　　Unhampered by the otherwise relentless hairpinning subjected to all their uptempo material, Hot Chip's ballads do better service to the band's songwriting skills. With a serpentine vocal melody, a healthy backbeat, and a gently unfolding array of whistles, pinging guitar notes, and reverbed backing vocals, album centrepiece "We're Looking for a Lot of Love" is an easy highlight. Meanwhile, with its slow changes and melting analog pads, the two-minute dirge "Whistle for Will" provides Low-style gravitas, closer "In the Privacy of Our Love" flirts with gospel, and the album's title track is an exercise in lazy, Sunday morning soul.
　　On paper, those individual components read like they might make for a patchy, turbulent record, and to be honest, that's pretty much how Made in the Dark plays. For all the talk about them being genre agnostics, they're just as beholden to everyday rules of pace and structure as anyone else. So: Good record but not a great one. By the time you see them this summer, they'll have it sorted out.
　　-Mark Pytlik
　　Rating: 7.0
　　source: pitchforkmedia.com
　　Artist: Hot Chip
　　Album: Made In The Dark
　　Date Of Release: February 4, 2008
　　Genre: Indie Electronic, Indie Rock

　　Out At The Pictures

　　Shake A Fist

　　Ready For The Floor

　　Bendable Poseable

　　We're Looking For A Lot Of Love

　　Touch Too Much

　　Made In The Dark

　　One Pure Thought

　　Hold On

　　Wrestlers

　　Don't Dance

　　Whistle For Will

　　In The Privacy Of Our Love

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