In Our Heads
Hot
Chip
Domino Records.
SCQ Rating: 82%
My name’s Ryan and I’m
a Hot Chip fan. Well that wasn’t so hard. But somehow, despite buying every
record of theirs since 2006’s breakthrough The Warning – all of them under the
cover of being for my wife, it should be noted – I’ve maintained a distance
between the band’s infectious tracks and any bits of admiration I might've offered in return. Even after their brand of electro-pop, instantly catchy but often
lacking the teeth to leave a full imprint, reached an impasse with 2010’s patchy-at-best
One Life Stand, I somehow stuck it out for one more round.
This summer’s In Our
Heads provided the TKO I forgot the British five-piece was capable of, and
asserted that any long-sought, daydream Hot Chip record I wordlessly followed them for
was no mere fantasy. “Motion Sickness” might just be the finest opener of the
year, an emotive roll of the dice that consolidates all of the band’s well-known
schizophrenic impulses, and subsequent tracks (“Don’t Deny Your Heart”, “Night
and Day”) flesh out a funk-addled love-in of nerdy studio grooves and razor-sharp
arrangements. It’s still very much a Hot Chip record, but the top-notch Hot
Chip we’ve only heard in fits and spurts over the last few releases. If you’ve
been on the fence throughout it all, In Our Heads might be your record to come
clean to as well.
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