Review: Hot Chip

Review: Hot Chip

Hot Chip 'Made In The Dark': Aidin Vaziri | Having managed to find an audience that actually wants to hear a bunch of guys who look a lot like junior bankers playing music that goes bliddly-bleep-bloop-bloop-bloop, British synth-pop import Hot Chip is on a hot streak. The group's previous album delivered the much-blogged hit "Over and Over," which featured the rather good lyric "Over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal." Its third and latest continues to mix the gags and grooves, with a sudden upsurge in dramatic '80s power ballads. Singer Alexis Taylor has a surprisingly soulful voice for a guy who probably still plays with Transformers, and he uses it to varying effect to belt out hypnotic dance-floor stompers such as "Shake a Fist" and future prom staples such as "We're Looking for a Lot of Love." While the band has a tendency to stick its tongue too deep into its cheek (see "Wrestlers"), on the whole this is about as sublime as dance music gets these days.