Hot Chip

Hot Chip is the precocious U.K. outfit that's gonna split listeners down the middle like a sharp ax through cordwood. The slow-bumping, lo-fi reverie of Coming on Strong is so calculatedly fuzzy and detached that it begs the same questions of hip-hop authenticity that LCD Soundsystem did to dance: Are these guys serious? Are they sincere? Can I seriously, sincerely like this stuff and not feel duped by disaffection in the end?

Related Content

• Free Ms. Cheezious This Afternoon From Peter Bjorn and John, GastroGeek Musicians
  September 23, 2011
• The Bright Light Social Hour Reanimated Rock 'n' Roll and 2 Live Crew at the Funky Buddha
  February 1, 2012
• "The Way" Is a Warm Travelogue Tale of Fathers and Sons
  October 13, 2011
• LCD Soundsystem's "This Is Happening" Is Happening at Fillmore Miami Beach
  September 30, 2010
• Iron & Wine to Visit Fillmore Miami Ahead of Major Label Debut
  November 18, 2010

More About

• Alex Taylor
• Hot Chip
• Joe Goddard
• Nick Drake
• LCD Soundsystem

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

If you can go without answers, if you can take in these microfine Jeep beats and just relax into Hot Chip's wit, then dig in. You certainly won't be offended — co-vocalists Joe Goddard and Alex Taylor are so laid-back that they're almost lying down, their bleached-out suburban lilt hypnotizing in its tea-time reserve, like a b-boy Nick Drake (!). Their instrumental accompaniment — dippy drum-machine beats, chilly slices of organ grind, assorted digital peanut gallerying — doesn't exactly overwhelm either. But other signs of life — disembodied saxophone, languid bass soloing, and... is that banjo? — draw out the laptop dance party in these slyly sophisticated tunes. Somehow, that minimalism smacks less of coyness than a fully realized, insistently likable style. Just as Taylor, um, raps on "Keep Fallin'": "Give up, all you suckers/We the tightest motherfuckers/And you've never seen this typa shit before now." True that. Purists will scoff, but when the sonics condense enough to allow it, the liberated just might get up and shake a leg. Or, more likely, sit back and tap a toe.