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David Watkins

Hot Chip
Made in the Dark
(DFA)
Defying categorisation, Hot Chip's followup to 2006's breakthrough The Warning reveals a down-tempo tenderness that tempers the band's more familiar acid squelches, guitar rock-outs and intricate rhythms.
The hushed piano arrangement of the title track sits prettily with the hyperactivity that surrounds it, while across the album ghosts as diverse as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Yazoo keyboard wizard Vince Clark wisp in and out of the mix.
Elsewhere, the kind of thump and grind more associated with Basement Jaxx gives the record a carnival vibe, as is the case on Don't Dance, which happens to be the album's most danceable track.
The combination of Owen Clarke's signature guitar and synthesiser, Felix Martin's clattering drum rhythms, LCD Soundsystem's Al Doyle and singer/songwriters Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor makes for an inventive collective unafraid of taking risks.
Indeed, the warm and tender songwriting is framed by melodies that take strong, acute turns and never follow well-trodden paths, as evidenced by the multiple personalities of the opening track, Out at the Pictures.
Other tracks   take tangents that aren't always successful, with the snake-hipped Shake a Fist descending into chaos before being reigned back in.
Perhaps the only criticism is that the album tries too hard at times to shoehorn all of these ideas into songs, with the habit of repeating lines  becoming grating over time. Nevertheless, there's enough ingenuity here for those looking for some substance to their dance music. If that's what you can call it.



Hot Chip