Hot Chip
The Warning
[DFA/EMI; 2006]
It’s only natural that Hot Chip would push themselves a bit after their debut Coming on Strong, a successful but safe entrée to the British electro-soul outfit. Their kitschy yet deeply affecting lyrics drew so much attention the first time around that I’d met more than a few people who said they hated the group simply because they seemed like cheeky fuckers. They missed the point, but that’s another matter. Follow-up album The Warning is propulsion and power and punctuation rolled up into one, abandoning a lot of the graceful, delicate melodies of the debut for songs with more wallop. It was a necessary move– a step forward– and the results are mostly golden.
Of course, a lot of their pert turns of phrases are still around, as are the molten ballads ("Look After Me", "Colours") but they’re usually eclipsed by the zooming, gliding synths, keyboards, and drum machines that push things forward. If their flavor was DF-Ay! before, it now sounds a bit more DF-Hey. Nowhere is that more evident than on the unsteady, maniacally fun "Over and Over", the early single that got most excited for their turn to the dancefloor. Built on the best kind of chant (one you can remember), a skulking guitar, and handclaps, the song is a standout among spastic jams like the churning Human League-esque "No Fit State" or crystalline "(Just Like We) Breakdown".
The centerpiece, though, comes in two parts, from two angles. First, the throbbing, sincere "Boy From School", which is marked by Alexis Taylor’s sweetly thin vocals and the heartbroken line, "We try, but we don’t belong." It’s as good a pop song as has been written this year. The second, the title track, is a less direct hit and takes a minute to sink in. It’s also got one of those couplets ("Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head/ Hot Chip will put you down, under the ground") to distract you. But like a lot of the band’s best songs, it splits into three and four parts, veering into bridges where there should be choruses, verses where there should codas, and dirges where there should be melodies. It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not botany. "Prepare yourself for a mechanical fright" is the clarion call.
Thing is, where Coming on Strong had scattered moments of mediocrity or unrealized embellishments, this album has several irrefutable numbers– and a couple of clangs. "Tchaparian" is needlessly jagged on an album full of round edges. "Arrest Yourself", a kinetic live staple, manages to avoid the effortless groove created onstage by trying the push the envelope with loose horn sounds and a disorienting arrangement. Their failures magnify an incomplete rotation.
As far as improvements go, The Warning isn’t so much a triumph as it is a reach in the right direction. Beat maestro Joe Goddard seems to have taken more of a backseat vocally to Taylor’s coo and this saps a lot of the joyful contrast from the group. Then again, the bear-like Goddard isn’t much of a singer in the first place, though he’s obviously got the bigger sense of humor. Their hip-hop influence has been scaled back a bit as well, turning to a punishing rhythm section stacked on top of deeper ambient sounds. The built-for-a-cathedral "Careful" opens softly and quickly erupts into choppy sample darts, then cools back down again. Its momentum and retraction is a good metaphor for the record.
Posted to Pitchfork by Sean Fennessey on May 25, 2006.