Every artist vies for critical acclaim, but once you have it, can you sustain it?
Coming off a series of favorable reviews for their 2006 release, The Warning, Hot Chip fall into a slump. Made in the Dark is a surprisingly drab affair, teeming with songs that sound like they're trying too hard to land a spot on the contemporary hit radio charts.
Tracks like "Ready for the Floor" don't venture outside standard pop formula. The electronic effects feel like an afterthought, a way to splash up hot pop with some dance-floor cool.
Theoretically, Hot Chip are still wading in interesting musical waters, a place where pop traditions are reinvented by ingenious DJs. Now they just have to go back to being good.
