John Doe
CRITIC
The Warning
For this reviewer, dance music is one genre of music that he loathes to comment on. This is because dance music is usually reviewed in terms of beats, textures and the tapestry of sounds that make up the feet-shuffling music that blares from one's speakers or headphones. Lyrics rarely come into the picture.
Dance music isn't exactly a form of music that you usually sit down on your couch to chill to and analyse, because the words (if any) that adorn the constructed soundscapes are usually just meaningless arbitrary phrases used to embroider the clothes of the beats beast. Emotion and/or intelligence is a commodity that is acutely lacking. Thankfully, this is something that cannot be said of Hot Chip's The Warning. For this is an album that offers much in both shifting one's feet and moving one's heart.
The Warning is Hot Chip's sophomore effort and I, admittedly, did not have the benefit of catching their debut to fully decipher their influences and direction. The band appears influenced by a myriad of dance heavyweights, of which their sounds the band seems to mix and concoct into a whole new recipe altogether. I could throw the names of New Order, Aphex Twin and Air into the mix, but it wouldn't be helpful as Hot Chip doesn't actually sound much like any of them. But whatever the influences may be, one thing is much in evidence. And that is, this band can write pop tunes...and they also have things to say, even if some of it is just plain prankish.
The album opens with Careful, a song that opens with a calming ambient swirl and then, out of nowhere, shifty beats and sound effects break their way into the fold and the number morphs into a jerkily funky number that would happily find its natural habitat nesting on a dance floor. This is a good introduction to the modus operandi which is to follow. And it is leads to the first of the album's centrepieces.
And I Was A Boy From School is a pop disco tune wrapped around fat, infectious beats and is impossible to dislike. While this observation could also, ostensibly, be applied to dozens of tunes by dozens of other dance groups, Hot Chip (or possibly vocalist Alexis Taylor) infuses this great bubbly crowd-pleaser with words that you would not normally associate with dance tunes. "And I was a boy from school, helplessly helping all the rules. And there was a boy at school, hopelessly wrestling all his fools.", Taylor croons. And then the chorus comes. "We try but we don't have long, we try but we don't belong." A song about social misfits for the hip dance-clubbing horde? Such ironic misplacement for a song that wears a sensitive heart on its sleeve for an audience that couldn't recognise one. Look After Me, a most blissfully sweet and sad love song continues much in the same vein. "Look after me and I will look after you. That's something we both forgot to do.", the chorus intones. It is the sound of a million broken hearts.
But, of course, a dance group couldn't have all blues in its palette. And you couldn't accuse Hot Chip of lacking cheek. Its hit, Over And Over, is a ridiculously kitschy mega-hook that repeats itself, well, over and over. "Over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal." You would have to surmise that the simian must be pretty ingenious to come up with a melody like this. The monkey mischief is carried very much over to the second of the album's centrepieces, the title track. The Warning is a track so gentle that it hardly registers when Taylor threatens that "Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head. Hot Chip will put you down, under the ground". Yeah, Hot Chip is threatening its listeners well-being. The impertinence...
While the band's vulnerability and irreverence provides an X-factor that differentiates (and elevates) it from its dance contemporaries, this band is also skilled at formulating beats that move feet. And they dare to experiment with song structures and progressions that less talented groups might be well-advised to avoid. A good example would be the song, Colours. It begins with a wistful introduction before shuffling into a glorious sunshine ditty that would put a smile on the faces of many. Arrest Yourself similarly shape-shifts all over the place, offering melodic switches that are as much surprise as pleasure. While such changes in form and delivery can administer triumphs, it can also result in miscalculations like Tchaparian, a daft track that gives the impression that the band is either not half-interested in this effort or just trying to be too clever. Experimentation is not without its pitfalls.
It is, however, gratifying that no matter the mis-steps, the album does end on a high note with its strongest track and the third and final of its centrepieces, No Fit State. An atmospheric number that envelopes and then refuses to loosen its grip, its mantra that "I'm in no fit state, I'm in no fit shape. To fall in love with you, to make a record of my life. To lose any more than I need, to watch my fingers bleed. To bust my body up, to drink out of your cup. To act a fool in love, acting hard's been tough." is both devilish and honest all at once. No Fit State effortlessly and confidently encapsulates all that is good about The Warning. And there is a fair amount of good in this album.
7/10
John Doe criticised on 2:10 PM.
