2. Hand Me Down Your Love
3. I Feel Better
4. One Life Stand
5. Brothers
6. Slush
7. Alley Cats
8. We Have Love
9. Keep Quiet
10. Take It In
Hot Chip, the London quintet with a reputation for churning out some of the catchiest electro-pop ditties of the recent era - remember 'Over And Over'? -, still have the challenge of producing a consistently great album. Would they achieve their goal on their fourth real studio album 'One Life Stand', released on EMI?
Opening track 'Thieves In The Night' seriously suggests this is going to be the one, a rampaging combination of deadly drums and sizzling samples ensures that 'Thieves' is the sort of track to hang about the eardrums for a while. Followed up by the piano-driven 'Hand Me Down Your Love' and indeed, during the first half of the album, epitomised by the wonderfully rhythmical, poignant almost, 'Brothers' the listener is effortlessly carried along on the crest of a beat and it feels good. You almost welcome the dour 'Slush' for a chance to contemplate the quality of the album up to that point.
However, it is the run-in from that prevents Hot Chip reaching the 'great album' status. 'We Have Love' aside, the closing tracks are weak in comparison to the rest. You get the feeling they should have stopped earlier or, at least, they should have redistributed the final tracks so that the listener doesn't notice the cracks in the ceiling so much.
A good, very good but not great album. NME-Europe will be hoping they cut out the dross when they take the stage at this year's SOS 4.8 Festival.
NME-Europe rating: 7.5/10
Top Track: 'Brothers'
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