Hot Chip - 'One Life Stand' (Parlophone) Released 01/02/2010

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Hot Chip’s latest stunning album marks a subtle, resonant fanfare to some rather wonderful things.  No, romance isn’t dead; no, music isn’t dead; and yes, the dance-floor can become a setting for heartfelt, pathos-laden brilliance.  True to form, it’s ten tracks of soulful, sweet, quintessentially English awkwardness and nigh-perfect pop.  Now, on album four, this is a band not only ready for the floor, but ready to take their well-deserved place in the pop-music canon.

There’s a maturity and coherence that makes each song a stand-alone slice of fizzingly eccentric sonic delight, yet also part of a contingent whole.  Each track, (most could easily be singles), is strikingly distinctive, but each piece together into a tattered, poignant billet-doux.  Maybe it’s because Valentines Day is fast approaching, but this record really does feel gorgeously, unashamedly romantic. Aside from the wry proffering of commitment in the stunning title track, we have the self-aware balladry of ‘Slush’; and the hip-shaking glitterball of funky, disco-tinged call-and-response in ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’. ‘We Have Love’ is a synth driven nadir of lust - all old-skool, pulsating simplicity and grin-inducing brilliance.

It’s this simplicity and apparent naïveté that is key: the beauty of Hot Chip is their creation of something that seems so relaxed, yet so resonant.  However, there is always more to it than their aural manipulations would have us believe.  Take ‘I feel Better’ .  A plea of hope, we think?  Of relief?  Despite the defiant, visceral honey-trap of chart-pleasing sounds, there is something puzzling here.  This is no single-ladies-put-a-ring-on-it call to arms.  Nope, “heaven is nowhere.”  The nihilist is unleashed: “everything is nothing”, they cryptically croon. 

Similarly on ‘Keep Quiet’, chiming ethereality duals with menacing handclaps and tinny clanks to create something unnerving, haunting, yet ultimately beautiful. There are their subtly sinister undertones, marking a distinct Massive Attack-esque paranoia.  Poppy, complex, mysterious, and, above all, stunning: One Life Stand is definitive proof that the geek really shall inherit the earth.