CD Reviews

Hot Chip: Made in the Dark

Astralwerks

By ROQUE STREW | February 12, 2008

3.0 Stars

In 2006, NYC hipsters the DFA introduced the US to Hot Chip as pocket-protecting purveyors of geeky but hypnotically gorgeous dance tunes on their first proper full-length, The Warning. Still firmly electronic, the British band’s new Made in the Dark sneaks in a few guitars while slyly returning to the smoldering, strutting ’70s soul of The Warning. No great departure, in other words. At their best — during the disc’s torch-lit forays inward, the piano-ballad title track and the forlorn “We’re Looking for a Lot of Love” — Hot Chip get serious, delving into the up-late tangles and riddles of the 21st-century heart. Not that they’ve jettisoned the goofiness (“Wrestlers”) and the outright oddities (“Bendable Poseable”) of their early import-only EPs. In fact, that playfulness permeates the futuro-rockers “Out at the Pictures” and “One Pure Thought.” But it’s the bittersweet single “Ready for the Floor” — with its electro-bounce, Batman quotes, and fluorescent keyboards — that stakes a claim as one of the year’s first club classics.

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