Hot Chip have always been the sort of band happy to flaunt their intelligence, but the smartest trick they pull on Made in the Dark is to show a little wisdom, too. 2006's The Warning was a fine record, albeit one sometimes difficult to take seriously thanks to its taste for pop pastiche--here's the Prince track, there's a 2-step garage track--or the occasional ironic wisecrack. On their third album, though, it's satisfying to report Hot Chip sound like no one but themselves. That is, shuffling, synthesizer-smeared electro-pop with a gooey emotional core and, in the shape of Alexis Taylor, one of the greatest white-boy soul voices since that of his hero, Green Gartside of Scritti Politti. "Ready for the Floor" sounds halfway between Detroit techno and the soundtrack to a Nintendo RPG, Taylor's clear, honest vocal reaching out hopefully: "I'm hoping by chance/You might take this dance," while the album's title track is a slow piano ballad that finds him laid blue over the ruins of a love affair. There is mischief, too, of course: take "Wrestlers," a dinky R&B track where the group show off their knowledge of wrestling slang. Even when they're ready to rumble, though, Hot Chip show off the sort of emotion and elation we've rarely seen since the glory days of New Order, and that's high praise indeed. --Louis Pattison
If Daft Punk and Flight of the Concords collaborated on the soundtrack to a fabulous movie about wrestling, such an effort might approach Hot Chip's sublime and goofy Made in the Dark. This British five-piece's third album is its most ridiculous and excessive; it's also their best thus far. Some really weird things go on here: nu-rave numbers segue into lovely ballads with the tempi of cough syrup, then into bizarre yet poppy feet-moving anthems. What if Ween were less lazy and less overtly heterosexual, or if the Beta Band fell in love with the dance floor and again made more music as good as their first EPs? Because of the alleged obnoxiousness of Hot Chip's audience, there are those who have a problem with this incredibly talented group. But if we only listened to music based on audiences, we'd probably never listen to Neil Young or Madonna, either, and what would life be like then? No fun, that's what it would be like. And Hot Chip is, quite simply, music for people who like fun. --Mike McGonigal
