Hot Chip

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.