Hot Chip - Made In The Dark

Not quite a phat fire

Hot Chip mainman Alexis Taylor has made his love of Prince so pronounced that it’s almost impossible to listen to Made In The Dark without that in your mind. Storming lead-off single Ready For The Floor even has Taylor dressed as Partyman-Prince in the promo video, which isn’t quite fair on itself; it has the pelvis-shaking hooks of Prince’s single, but an added emotional core that Partyman doesn’t.

Overly top-heavy, MITD’s first four tracks present a masterclass in dancefloor-battering electro, but it’s in places the sound of white boys approximating sparse Black Album stop-start rhythms, building towards Lovesexy’s everything-but-the- kitchen-sink production. Also, like Lovesexy, it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be following the initial burst, veering back and forth between Over & Over-like revisits and ballads that, from a band so clinical, never quite hit their emotional targets. The exception proving the rule is Wrestlers, a beautiful sleeper track that draws parallels between prime-time wrestling and relationships.

Ultimately, Hot Chip come off best when they play it for the clubs. MITD ends on such a forgettable downbeat, you’ll just want to listen to the start “over and over”, without ploughing much further. More a skinny French fry than hearty potato wedge.

EMI | tbc

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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