Hot Chip – 'In Our Heads' review
Hot Chip’s last album, 2010’s terrific One Life Stand, found the band, four fifths of whom were recent newlyweds, loved up to euphoric effect. Two years on, the tone is more regretful: “Have we taken all we’re good for? Have we registered our love in vain?” sings Alexis Taylor on How Do You Do, setting a theme for the rest of In Our Heads that would shake the resolve of even the most ardent romantics, while track titles like Now There Is Nothing and Let Me Be Him speak for themselves.
Thankfully, though, if Hot Chip’s love lives are on the wane, their songwriting, consistently idiosyncratic and playful here, certainly isn’t. Flutes and Night & Day fizz with two-step energy and humour, Always Been Your Love is a charming slice of classic British soul, and while the result is perhaps a more grown-up, less giddy ride than One Life Stand, it’s still just as fun, infectious and entertaining – no mean feat for a break-up LP.
8/10
