Hot Chip, In Our Heads (Domino) **** (From York Press)

Hot Chip, In Our Heads (Domino) ****

12:38pm Friday 29th June 2012 in CD reviews By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

TO many, Hot Chip are the ultimate ‘Marmite band’, you either love or you hate them for all their quirky electro pop, ironic knitwear and 1980s glasses.

Fans will like their fifth album which perfectly contrasts Hot Chip’s trademark combination of hip-hop, garage, dance and pop influences with a conspicuously un-cool subject matter.

A long-term relationship is celebrated in Look At Where We Are, an R&B-influenced ballad, while the Basement Jaxx-esque Night And Day sardonically asks: “We’re not in Ayia Napa, do I look like a rapper?” While some things remain the same, Hot Chip’s sense of irony is a bit more underplayed than before, which might widen the appeal.

From the nostalgic sounds of opening track Motion Sickness to the nineties garage influenced These Chains, In Our Heads is an impressive and streamlined effort.