Hot Chip - One Life Stand

Add Date: February 2nd
Artist: Hot Chip

Album: One Life Stand
Label: Astralwerks
Genre: Pasty Electro-pop

Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of Hot Chip. They're the only band to have surpassed 1,000 listens on my last.fm page, and I've caught them live at every given occasion (which, unfortunately, happens to have only been once). Their blend of soulful singing and thoughtfully arranged electronica compositions taps right into my pleasure center, alongside bands like The Xx and The Notwist. Hot on the heels of the excellent solo album Harvest Festival by Hot Chip member Joe Goddard, One Life Stand is fittingly short for the band, coming in at only 10 tracks. Where Goddard's album uses deep synth lines and slow progression, One Life Stand is more of a full-frontal attack on the senses (alas, no true nudity). "We Have Love" is a unabashed club-banger, with vocal distortion straight out the dancehall and a relentless adherence to four on the floor bass drones. While the song is nothing new to the world of music, it is wholly successful and further proof that Hot Chip can adapt to most any sub-genre of electronica. "I Feel Better" has cheapo 90s synths, but don't kid yourself, Hot Chip knows exactly what era it is evoking. The Cher-autotune and stutter-step percussion craft a song better than it has any right to be, and Alexis Taylor's choir-boy vocals fit here perfectly. As with the rest of the Hot Chip's catalogue (The Warning excepting), One Life Stand is a competent collection of singles with a few missteps. "Slush" wastes a beautifully orchestrated ending on a track overwhelmed with grating vocal background noise. "Brothers" is a deflated musical circle jerk, with Taylor and Goddard taking turns congratulating each others musical successes. Luckily, the skip button exists on most, if not all, music-playing devices, and on-the-whole, One Life Stand is both an improvement on Made in the Dark and a vital entry in Hot Chip's career.