Hot Chip - 8/10

It'd be stretching it to call them geeks, but one suspects that part of Hot Chip's continued attraction is just how comfortable Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard and pals are in being a bit, well, uncool. The deadliest thing about being flavour of the month is that tastes change quickly. Coming 11 years after their debut, 'Why Make Sense?' is Hot Chip's sixth album – which says everything about their staying power and explains their decision not to tinker too much with the formula: crystalline dance-pop with a seam of pure, euphoric house running through it. As ever, it's smart, too. There are references to their influences everywhere – see the bubbling Kraftwerkian synths and motorik bump that underpin 'Cry For You' – but Hot Chip take care to tone them down. With total belief in their worth, they re-introduce stylings seldom seen on contemporary dance albums, where mood and atmosphere too often trump melody and songcraft. So the legendary Pos from De La Soul adds a chirpy, surprising rap to the precision-tooled machine funk of 'Love Is The Future', the groaning slow-house of opener 'Huarache Lights' is one of a number of tracks where Hot Chip dust off the vocoder, and Taylor adopts a whisper and spells out the title on the Jamiroquai-esque 'Started Right'. Goddard, of course, is 50 per cent of The 2 Bears, and while 'Why Make Sense?' only harbours one out-and-out dancefloor track – the spitting, organ-soaked 90s house of 'Need You Now' – there are plenty of 'moments' elsewhere. For example, the robo-soul of 'Easy To Get' explodes incongruously, thrillingly, into a screw-faced, acidic riot for its final minute, and – Hot Chip also boast some of dance music's most nuanced lyrics – features the following lines: "If we try to stand alone/We'll be playing with a force beyond control/Our faces pressed against the glass/In the knowledge you belong to us." Sounds boastful? No, it's the truth.