Album after album, Hot Chip have continued to defy the odds and make truly resonating music. The chances always are that they’ll fall at the next hurdle but instead In Our Heads is their most playful and colourful record yet. The album has form, thanks to the release of ‘Flutes’ (complicated dichotomies, soaring vocal lines and, unsurprisingly, some pretty sweet flutes) and ‘Night and Day’ (the punchiest, sexiest, and their most addictive offering since ‘Over and Over’). Now, as In Our Heads appears on shelves across the country, the big question is this: does the album live up to the enormous precedent set by the first two tracks? In short, yes.
‘Motion Sickness’ and ‘How Do You Do’, deliciously dance-y, synth-driven tracks, set us up for what’s to come. ‘Don’t Deny Your Heart’ is both romantic and cheery while following track, ‘Look At Where We Are’, strengthens the surprising, yet welcome, heart-on-a-sleeve mood that pervades many of these tracks.
The dark, swirling techno of electro-ballad ‘Flutes’ will have you captivated while up-beat offerings such as ‘Ends Of The Earth’ will leave you wishing that these were the type of songs played in your local nightclub. Penultimate track, ‘Let Me Be Him’, a sweetly soothing anthem, is probably one of the finest songs Hot Chip have ever recorded and showcases some considerable prowess in the lyric writing department.
In Our Heads is very much in the same league as 2008’s Made In The Dark, an album that made them one of the biggest movers and shakers in the electro-pop scene, for a little while at least. Electro-pop is and always has been a fickle genre and it’s hard to make this often disposable music endure. With this latest album, however, Hot Chip have made a statement – they’ve put down roots and are here to stay.
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