Made In The Dark - Hot Chip

Let's just start this off by saying I liked Hot Chip before it was cool to like them.

All joking aside, Hot Chip are one of those bands that you can almost always rely on for a cracking single or two, but need to make some use of your skip button when listening to an album of theirs.

Can Made In The Dark, their third album, buck that trend?

Well, no. But that's is a good thing as well as slightly disappointing thing. Disappointing because as ever you are left with the feeling that Hot Chip are falling just that little bit short of genuine greatness but a good thing becuase at least you have another handful of cracking tunes to add to your Hot Chip compilation.

Ready For The Floor (NOT actually written for Kylie, despite what you may have heard, but offered to her AFTER the boys had already written it) is a case in point. Whilst not up to the standards of Over And Over, it is a cracking, and bizarre, choice as the lead single. Don't Dance is another cracker, and is on par with something Timbaland could toss out at his best (and believe me, that's a compliament).

All too often though, the songs don't quite grab you as they suggest they will and some of this maybe down to the fact that Hot Chip are just that little bit too wilfully obtuse, trying to fit too much into each song in an attempt to prove how good they are. With a little slowing down in terms of their ideas, Hot Chip might yet prove able to match their music with their obvious, and commendable, ambition.