Album of the week: 6.4

Hot Chip

In Our Heads

(2012)

why you'll love it: lots of variety, lots of crazy sounds, cool lyrics, nerd disco

why you'll hate it: Sometimes a bit too tepid / too many ballads.

Hot Chip is one of the few bands that I rub my palms together in anticipation for. This electronic pop group from England has grown over the years from quirky white-boy goofballs, to dangerously artistic electro-geeks, to gaudy dance hall maestros. Every Hot Chip album comes from a different place, or uses a different toolbox, but their embrace for all things outsider and kitsch, is remarkable, even when they're at their most user friendly.

The heavy vibe I get from In Our Heads is American synthpop. There is a bit of love song holdover from 2010's One Life Stand, but without as much UK inspired house and pop. Occupying that space are a lot of thick and gloopy synths, vocal effects, and 80's ballad melodies. Hot Chip stays as quirky as they've always been, but the coat of paint feels fresh. The single, "Night And Day" feels like the only typical Hot Chip song on here. If not for the vocal effects, the mellow and groovy "Look At Where We Are" sounds like something that could have been on their 2004 debut LP, Coming on Strong. "These Chains" immediately follows, and feels like an evolved version of that.

I love the first 2/3s of this album. The first three tracks have a really colorful sound. Some of the lyrics stick out as pleasantly abstract ("Remember when people thought the world was round?"), and full of that radiating Hot Chip love that transcends typical boy meets girl scenarios ("A church is not for praying. It's for celebrating…") I love the funk-explosion that "Don't Deny Your Heart" ends on, and the all seven minutes of the kruatrock groove-robot that is "Flutes".

Most of what follows "Flutes" sadly, falls flat. The son gs get to be a little bit too… smooth-jazz? Destroyer managed to pull off this kind of Kenny-G stuff last year, but Hot Chip doesn't do enough to strengthen the tracks. I think it's the lack of traditional instruments, because everything sounds shallow and lacking heart. Also, it's the same template of sounds they were using to make you dance at the beginning of the album, and don't transition very well into 80's ballads. It's amazing how fast 7 minutes of "Flutes" flies by, but "Let Me Be Him"'s 7 minutes feel like a test of endurance.

"Ends of The Earth" is the only positive mark of the last four tracks, sounding exceptionally arty. Some of this album, this song especially, has a cool Phillip Glass application of the synths. I get this vision of my head of leotards and crystals on songs like this, and only Hot Chip manages to pull it off without a hint of pretentiousness.

In Our Heads does some cool new things for Hot Chip, and it's a much stronger album than One Life Stand, but I'm not being knocked out of my chair like I was for The Warning (2006) and my favorite album of 2008, Made in The Dark. It could be that they just are done with the "art-attack" phase in their career, or their prime years are behind them; but Hot Chip certainly has not jumped the shark yet. A lot of the best stuff on this doesn't hit you in the face like the older stuff did. It's a bit more reflective. This is a great summer pop album for those of us nerds who don't like to leave the house.