Hot Chip
One Life Stand
EMI Records
  

Hot Chip - "Hand Me Down Your Love"

London based quintet, Hot Chip, is back with their fourth full album, One Life Stand, which they are toting as their favorite record by far. And while it shows their evolution by mellowing out their sound and pace, they continue to make some of the best pop songs for the club and lead singer Alexis Taylor is still holding himself to a high standard of lyricism. It’s a relatively short 10-track album that is to the point and much more striped down than they’ve shown in their keyboard-laden past. However it is pulled off excellently and gives fans a whole new reason to see them again, and a solid dance album to brush off the winter sorrow.

One Life Stand opens up strong with a newer organic sound, on “Hand Me Down Your Love,” showcasing their maturity and exploration into music with the use of actual pianos clinking and resonating notes and the little details such as fingers dragging on the guitar cords. The band’s growth is also evident in the lyrics, singing about life commitments and eliminating material desire and appreciating the day in front of us repeating, “There is a day that is yours for embracing. Everything’s nothing and nothing is ours.”

While it starts off incredibly strong and thought out towards the second half of the album they just seem to say “fuck it, we like synth dance music,” and got back to the sound that made front man Alexis Taylor and his pink and neon yellow Aqua Socks famous. The sad part is that the songs that are reminiscent of the Hot Chip we grew fond of are actually the weakest songs on the release, but still decent.

The album titled single “One Life Stand,” feels like it belongs in the sound track of an 80’s crime drama staring Jimmy Cliff—in the best way possible—with its brass drums and dramatic rise and peak. And based on their dance moves from its video, it looks like they’re taking cue or two from Bret and Jamaine Flight of the Conchords.

While this record has some great highs, and I’m talking some of the best Hot Chip songs ever put out, songs like “Brothers” which if you didn’t know it were Hot Chip, you’d think there was some new Christian dance band on the scene. And the line “Playing Xbox with my brothers,” I hope was supposed to be a joke.

 I’m a fan of previous Hot Chip releases, but I’ve felt that their earlier songs were hit or miss and they still didn’t have a well flowing full album to their resume, but have fulfilled that with One Life Stand. Even despite a few misses—hey, not every track can be a banger—with this drop Hot Chip has establishing themselves as something much more than and iTunes singles band. Say what you will, but if this album had flopped they would have become lost in single-track sales. But they pulled it off and created some of their best songs ever, and it’s all just getting me even more excited to see them with The xx on their US spring tour.