Hot Chip Album: “One Life Stand [CD/DVD]”

"One Life Stand" is UK dance quintet Hot Chip's 4th album and it is filled with swirling synths, catchy melodies, and angelic falsettos. Opening cut "Thieves in the Night" is deliriously euphoric, while "Hand Me Down Your Love" sets sweeping strings to a Motown-style beat. Title track "One Life Stand" is dark & chiming at the same time, while "Alley Cats" and the floaty Pet Shop boys-style "Take It In" are more sombre.

The bouncy "We Have Love" was apparently inspired by Donna Summer's "I Feel Love", while the pulsing "Brothers" (a paean to looking out for each other) starts off ballad-like. Of the upbeat numbers, "I Feel Better" is the stand-out, trance-like and hypnotic with icy synth-strings and bouncy beat perfectly offsetting the warbled falsetto. My favourite.

The ballads are a revelation themselves; "Keep Quiet" and especially the Doo Wop-style piano ballad "Slush" with densely layered harmonies. Clever and beautiful!

Hot Chip is unquestionably one of the most distinctive technosonic music groups to emerge in the last decade. They broke onto the scent in 2005 with their debut album, The Warning, which was an inconsistent album but featured some profound moments where the band's unique fusion of retro, pop, and dance music simply glistened. Over their next two albums, Hot Chip continued to expand their sound, becoming more complex and eccentric. As their songs became busier, Hot Chip's albums were still plagued by inconsistency with two or three tremendous singles, but the albums were unable to maintain the momentum throughout. With their fourth album, Hot Chip appear to have made a conscious effort to dial back their complexities and focus on making a more consistent album and with One Life Stand, they have succeeded in making the best overall album of their career.

One Life Stand kicks off with "Thieves In The Night," which features a simple, driving beat overlaid by some typical Hot Chip keyboard sounds, but as a whole, the song feels much more sparse and is less exuberant than much of Hot Chip's prior music, and this sets a tone for the entire album. Next is "Hand Me Down Your Love," which is a more upbeat, energetic song, but still feels more controlled than what I've come to expect from Hot Chip. On "I Feel Better," Hot Chip find a beautiful medium between the driving beats and synth notes their known for and their new, more controlled sound. Despite clocking in at only 4:40 seconds, the song has an epic feel about it stemming from the lush keyboard work and the vocalist giving a fabulous performance.

The album continues the momentum until track six "Slush." This is the one track on the album where Hot Chip dials back the energy too much. At 6:26, this slow, uneventful song drags on much too long and makes it seem that One Life Stand will suffer from the same inconsistency that has plagued prior Hot Chip albums. However, the album quickly hits a second high point on the infectiously catchy "We Have Love." This is one two songs on One Life Stand that sound very much like past Hot Chip records and is also so catchy that it is near impossible to listen to without physically bobbing your head to the beat. After the rather forgetful "Keep Quiet," the album closes on an extremely high note with one of the best songs Hot Chip's best songs. As is common in their best songs, the rhythm of "Take It In" is incredibly catchy and the vocalist's performance, especially in the chorus, takes the song to another level.

On One Life Stand, the obvious difference from Hot Chip's prior albums is that, musically, their sound is much more dialed down and precise. However, what also makes this their best, most complete album is the consistent strength of their lyrics. The songs on One Life Stand largely focus on the importance of commitment whether it is a romantic relationship or a friendship. The necessity of human connection is something that we all feel, so these songs about the importance of these relationships make for highly compelling listens.

Upon their arrival five years ago, Hot Chip was one of the most exciting bands on the electronic music scene, but after their first three albums, they were becoming relatively predictable. With One Life Stand, Hot Chip has consciously shifted their sound to become more mature and consistently high quality, so as we move into a new decade, Hot Chip is once again at the forefront of excitement in the electronic music world.

Their previous works were so good, so funny, so catchy, so cheeky, I think they probably found it hard to top that. This one is not as poppy, not as catchy, not as bright. There's definitely still some funny stuff in here, they're a bunch of very cheeky lads, excellent sense of humor, but this one sort of fades into the background for me, it just doesn't stand out like their other discs. I'll just say that it's not bad.

Like most here I first got into Hot Chip after listening to "The Boy From School" on Pitchfork and instantly became obsessed with it. I then went and got The Warning and was blown away. There is a good reason why to this day I would still recommend that album above all others to get someone into Hot Chip. It is still probably overall their strongest front-to-back album, but this one almost takes the cake. I would put it right between "The Warning" and "Made in the Dark". I didn't think they'd be able to top those last 2 albums, but again these guys continue to amaze. I don't know how the hell Alexis Taylor & Joe Goddard do it. Every damn song these guys write is amazing. The melodies are original and catchy, the production is fantastic. Even the weakest song on the whole album "Slush", at least has some interesting things going on and the boys were trying something different. I can respect that. Even Hot Chip at their worst is still not that bad. I just don't know if these guys are even capable of writing a bad song. If you enjoyed the more slower moments from the last albums, you will really love OLS. There is realy only one "Over and Over"-type banger on here, but this is still groovy electropop regardless, but the melodies are stronger than ever (seems like they get better and better) and the LYRICS especially are the biggest improvement. Trust me give it a few listens. I am just so happy these guys are around making music and please please please if you like this band go see them live! They put on a brilliant concert.

The recently released fourth studio album by Hot Chip entitled One Life Stand, is a calm, innovative effort carefully crafted by the popular British electropop band. Including beat-driven, bass-line induced dance pieces as many of their previous work, Hot Chip took a different approach to their most recent album. The pieces in One Life Stand are not cluttered with sound, giving them a serene, calm, smooth feel, but still displaying aspects of musical influences such as Kraftwerk. They are warm, simple, but still very clearly crafted with a high level of care; despite its mild, placid feel, it does not descend to blandness by any stretch of the imagination.

Written mainly by Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard, the two vocalists of the alternative dance quintet, the album has a pulse that is very much alive, portentous in its ability to evolve throughout all of its ten songs. It begins and ends with true intense beat-driven dance pieces, evolves into a more alternative Indie rock sound, and then shifts again to melodic-based numbers. The final song, "Take It In", is a highpoint, providing the album with a stinging, powerful closer. The opening songs, "Thieves In The Night" and "Hand Me Down Your Love" kick off the album as the heaviest dance-floor pieces. Both begin slowly, and progress into dynamic, deep tunes with building bass lines. "I Feel Better", is a balanced mix between the deep techno dance sound and a more melodic, crafty sound we see later on. String melodies resonate, echoing throughout the song, giving it a unique flavor. Goddard, usually the back-up baritone, provides the lead vocals. A new instrument is also introduced: steel pans are incorporated, a lesser used, more innovative sound to modern technosonic music. They almost provide a laser type of sound, while it is in fact musique concrete, sound recorded acoustically from steel drums and cymbals.

The middle of the album comprised of "Brothers", "Slush", and "Alley Cats", fill it with a more alternative pop sound. "Alley Cats" is much of a rhythm-based rock mixed with Hot Chip's signature pop style, packed with standard guitar and keyboards. While "Brothers" and "Slush" are not on the fore-front and basically used to fill up space on the CD, they do provide mellow ballads that contrast well with the rest of the album. Power builds with the final few pieces; "We Have Love" brings back some intensity with its beat. Vocal recordings are used not just as a lyrical component, but are added to drive the beat further, a tactic we've seen in pieces such as "Flight Tonight" by The Avalanches. These last few songs are indeed intense, but not tense, as they are also defined by strong melodies ("Keep Quiet" reintroduces distinct string melodies that are heard earlier on).

And then there's "One Life Stand", the fourth song after which the album's named. As the album's first single, it is warm, carefully crafted, and involves the synth equipment that styles Hot Chip's music, including a clever play on words for its title. It may be too alternative rock sounding for most pretentious, purely technosonic music fans, but it is an irresistible tune nonetheless. A hook as addictive as the one this song contains makes it no surprise that the song has received rave reviews in the UK and some face time on American radio. Vocals are also used in this song almost as a form of synth-percussion. As Taylor sings in the chorus, "Keep on believin'", it sounds more like synthed notes on a keyboard before you realize they're actually spoken words. Steel drums make their way into this piece as well; the single obviously incorporates all of the subtle themes present throughout the album. It is no surprise this gem gave the album its name. All ten songs serve a purpose, and all ten will continue to take Hot Chip's One Life Stand to the top of the Electronic Music Charts.