The received wisdom on London's Hot Chip is that they're equal opportunity funsters who'll pinch from any old genre in the name of a grin. But after the potent combination of "Over and Over", "Boy From School", and all the attendant remixes increased their festival bill font size by about 20 points, there was good reason to believe that the London quintet's next record might find them rectifying their cartoonish pop into something sleeker and more streamlined. They might have, for instance, decided to expand on the soul and R&B influences that occasionally pepper their music; or to smoothen the undanceable rumples of their creaky, short-circuited pop with a few well-placed blasts of minimal techno; or maybe, to topple their previous output with an even more dazzling pastiche of color, candy, and complexity.
Any one of those paths would have served Hot Chip well. But of all of their many virtues, focus isn't one, and instead they took them all. A string of self-conscious interruptions, perfect pop moments, show-offy sonics, and inscrutable non-sequiturs, the lovable but flawed Made in the Dark has moments that come off as almost gluttonous-- and that's even by Hot Chip's standards. And while the majority of the material here ranges somewhere between inoffensive and fantastic, momentarily obnoxious misfires (the funhouse mirror horrorshow "Bendable Poseable", the impish "Don't Dance", and the weirdly overrated "Shake a Fist") underscore why "all of the above" is not a tenable long-term formula for the band: That level of consumption can't stay charming forever.
Which is to say that Hot Chip have a big record in them and this isn't it. Once you do away with that disappointment, though, there's plenty to appreciate. There might not be anything as definitive or as moment-making as "Over and Over" or "Boy From School" here, but once you've acclimatized to Made in the Dark's sonic trills and party poppers, some affecting songs emerge. On the pop side, none are as lovable as the tender-hearted electro of "Ready for the Floor", in which the band once again finds comfortable middle ground between Alexis Taylor's balladesque vocal and vibrant, electro-pop dressing. Elsewhere, the feelgood "Touch Too Much" cruises by on a big chorus and some characteristically clattering percussions, while the infectious "One Pure Thought" opens against a backdrop of gnarled guitar chords and keening synths.
Unhampered by the otherwise relentless hairpinning subjected to all their uptempo material, Hot Chip's ballads do better service to the band's songwriting skills. With a serpentine vocal melody, a healthy backbeat, and a gently unfolding array of whistles, pinging guitar notes, and reverbed backing vocals, album centrepiece "We're Looking for a Lot of Love" is an easy highlight. Meanwhile, with its slow changes and melting analog pads, the two-minute dirge "Whistle for Will" provides Low-style gravitas, closer "In the Privacy of Our Love" flirts with gospel, and the album's title track is an exercise in lazy, Sunday morning soul.
On paper, those individual components read like they might make for a patchy, turbulent record, and to be honest, that's pretty much how Made in the Dark plays. For all the talk about them being genre agnostics, they're just as beholden to everyday rules of pace and structure as anyone else. So: Good record but not a great one. By the time you see them this summer, they'll have it sorted out.
