If you like Hot Chip, chances are you enjoy dancing. 2006's The Warning instilled in you "the joy of repetition," and you're ready for more. After checking to make sure your roommates are out or otherwise occupied, you shut yourself in your room (ready to empty your arsenal of white-boy dance moves) and you put on Made in the Dark. A simple synth line gradually picks up until you think you can't stand the suspense any longer, before breaking into glorious and insistent drums embellished with tambourines and, of course, more synth. The chorus feels like a wheel that's working overtime to catch up to the rest of the machine and then, to your immense satisfaction, it does. This first track, "Out at the Pictures," and the two tracks that follow it are the hard hitters of Hot Chip's third album; they have the repeating lyrics, the bouncy beats and the intensity that made "Over and Over" a hit. The rest of the album is devoid of any bangers, but finds the band experimenting successfully with trance-like sounds, like the squeaky blips and fuzzy synths on "Don't Dance."
It is when Hot Chip tries to escape this niche that they run into trouble. Made in the Dark features several uncharacteristically melancholy tracks whose spare backing emphasizes the vocals and lyrics to a degree that does not satisfy. It doesn't help that these tracks are towards the end, so that you are left with the taste of frontman Alexis Taylor crooning "In the privacy of our love/There is nothing outside, above" backed by "woah woah woah" and a piano track he might have stolen from Norah Jones. The members of Hot Chip do themselves a disservice by loading all of the goods at the front; hopefully in the future they will cultivate listener expectations more carefully.
Download It: "Out At The Pictures," "Shake A Fist"
Skip It: "In the Privacy of Our Lov"
