:: Track Listing

1. Careful
2. Boy From School
3. Colours
4. Over And Over
5. Just Like We (Breakdown)
6. Tchaparian
7. Look After Me
8. The Warning
9. Arrest Yourself
10. So Glad To See You
11. No Fit State
12. Untitled


:: Record Review

Hot Chip

The Warning
(DFA/Astralwerks; 2006)

Rating: 79%
Combined Rating: 80%


In high school, an English teacher told me that “sophomore” came from the Latin “sophos” (wise) and “moros” (fool), thus creating the trite character of the “wise fool,” which excessively pedantic teachers like to believe their students are. Of course, this is a false etymology. Sophomore is actually a more complicated derivation of the word “sophist,” which was a compliment linked to wisdom and argument, but as early as 1581 could also mean “one who makes use of fallacious arguments.” Sophomores came from “sophisters,” which was a term used at Cambridge to describe people who used such sophism. Thus “wise fool,” while an understandable misinterpretation of word origin, mistakenly confuses the trickster from the one being tricked. Sophists, and potentially sophomores, use their perceived foolishness to prove how smart they actually are.

Perhaps the best example of this in pop music is Prince. He celebrated things like promiscuity, fine asses, purple, velvet, and motorcycles (usually all at the same time), yet in the process challenged and undermined traditional notions of race, gender, sexuality, and even the legitimacy of written language. Oh yeah, and then he shows up on American Idol and busts out a pocket comb, Kenickie-style, allegedly walking in as he is scheduled to go on stage and leaving as soon as it is over. Badass.

Hot Chip are not that badass. But they are, as their second album shows, beginning to learn more and more from their master. As self-avowed Prince-maniacs, they are finally stepping into his brand of swagger, the kind that comes with time and a better understanding (of the artist and for the listener) of what exactly it is they are doing. Like my favorite record of last year, Architecture in Helsinki’s In Case We Die, or The Fiery Furnaces’ Blueberry Boat, The Warning is a second album that takes previously glimpsed beauty and potential and turns it into reality. Yes, this album comes on stronger than Coming On Strong. This album sees the Chips as total sophists; they have found their confidence in honing their cheap beats, and using their cheesy Casio synth to take their songwriting to the next level, upping both the intelligence and booty-shake quotients.

This album will never have the critical success of the Fieries or the Helsinkis because of the way that Hot Chip have honed their craft; namely, by further cementing their thumbs to their noses. Sure, their first album’s weakest points (seemingly tossed-off songs, slow pacing) have been eliminated, replaced by tighter, more interesting production and more dance beats. But the previous album’s strengths have also improved, making the themes of loss that much more isolating, and the ironic pop culture satire even more biting. This duality makes the album much more listenable, but no easier to digest.

Hot Chip know what they are doing now, seducing and destroying with lethal efficiency. The relationship they’ve represented here is defiantly abusive. On the second track, “Boys from School,” a repetitive and simplistic Daft Punk synth, along with the immediacy of the vocals, transforms a seemingly trite song about adolescence and the inevitability of growing up into something much more complex. The bleak “I got lost / you said this was the way back” could be a reference to this record’s “accessibility,” but is also indicative of the yearning, betrayal, and sadness that permeate the album.

The Warnings’s middle is dominated by huge dance numbers, and “Over and Over” would have been a mega-hit in Astralwerks’ golden “Block Rockin’ Beats” era. The chorus is an image-laden sing-along, and the bridge is a perfect example of excessive spelling that hasn’t been seen since Pulp’s “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.” However, Hot Chip take the spelling bee route to a bizarre extreme, producing a haphazard collection of words that still seem oddly deliberate: “Kissing sexing Casio poke you me I.” Even this song, though, isn’t exempt from a type of sadness, as the “joy in repetition” here also involves images of machinelike toys or bizarre circus acts, leaving the narrator (and us) feeling “like a monkey with a miniature cymbal.”

The centerpiece, though, is obviously the title track. “The Warning” features both the desperation and confidence of men (and bands) still finding their place in the world. Consider: “I’m looking for a hope for my malfunctioning being.” This feeling doesn’t last long, though, as the chorus exudes a confidence so extreme as to be ridiculous: “Hot Chip will break your legs / snap off your head.” This song is a microcosm of the whole album, which addresses loss and isolation in a bombastic and musically “superficial” way. This is sophomore. In the end, Hot Chip leave us frustrated, which makes sense since this is an album about frustration. In a way it is too successful, forcing genre and cultural questions that most people, especially critics, can’t deal with. Are Hot Chip smarter than us? Maybe, but they also have something to prove. All is fair in love and music, and Hot Chip continue to wage a war from the outskirts of electro-pop, where conformity is camouflage and cheap Casios are weapons of mass destruction. Craig Eley :: 2 June 2006 |