Hot Chip has gotten decidedly less hook-y and hilarious over the years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, necessarily, but it’s interesting to listen to this, their fifth proper album, and compare it to a band that once said it would “break your legs, snap off your head.” People grow up sometimes, and for a lesser group, that might equate with boring.
Luckily, that’s not the case here. Songs like classy, building opener “Motion Sickness” prove that many of the less interesting cuts on 2010’s One Life Stand were an anomaly. Dance jams like “How Do You Do” and “Don’t Deny Your Heart” butt up against relatively low-key numbers like “Look at Where We Are,” and the tempo fluctuates consistently throughout. Like any good evening out, the fun level varies, and at times it gets a little too blurry for good measure, but that’s what we came for, right?