CD of The Week

Little known (or at least acknowledged) fact about the gentlemen in Hot Chip: They were celebrating the joys of long-term monogamy in their music way before pop titans like Beyoncé made them multiplatinum. Their previous two albums in particular found them waxing eloquent on both the comfort (One Life Stand) and the fun (In Our Heads) of the familiar, in life and in love. Fittingly, they also found them better bridging the gap between their manic and maudlin modes of music, sounding more distinct and distinguished. "Hot Chip" is now an applicable adjective for an artist's style as a result and if nothing else, their new record Why Make Sense? can be classified as very Hot Chip.

On first or even second listen, it might not have much to offer longtime fans in the way of something new. Lead single "Huarache Lights" is as archetypal and unassuming as anything they've ever put their name to, even with the First Choice/DJ Rashad sample. Further, more attentive spins will review subtle new sonic tricks, however. Joe Goddard has mentioned the band's heavier hip-hop and R&B influences on this outing. Those are easy to hear on tracks like "Love Is The Future," which incorporates verses from De La Soul, and token slow jam "White Wine and Fried Chicken," which sounds like an outtake from Beck's Midnite Vultures.

Lyrically, the band continues to convey the affirmative powers of desire and devotion, but this time they allow space for the kind of existential angst that alternately causes and comes from them. "Need You Now" laments living and loving in a world threatened by terrorism, while the title track doesn't even try to make sense of the world in which it takes place. All of these concerns come together in the lovely, lacerating centerpiece "Dark Night." Steeped in Philly disco and separation anxiety, it slashes at the same heartstrings as past peak "Boy from School," summing up its sleeve-adorning sentiment with the couplet "If I don't get to see you/At least I can feel you."

While that line could easily sum up the group's modus operandi in general, a more apt one comes in earlier standout "Started Right." Another deceptively standard Hot Chip banger, it flexes its funk muscles while Alexis Taylor confesses to its subject that "You make my heart feel like, like it's my brain." If ever there was a perfect way to explain what it means to sound "Hot Chip," which is still a very good thing to sound like, it's that.

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