Review:

on 2011-03-11 CharlesMartel Said:

Alright, I admit it. I bought into the hype and made the mistake (yet again) of buying an album before checking it out. I didn't download any tracks to see if they appealed, as I normally do having been caught out this way before. Instead I proceeded straight to HMV, did not pass Go, did not collect 200 quid and wasted 8.99. In spite of promising to myself repeatedly to stop doing this, I cannot simply walk past a record store without going in and ending up buying something.

For a start, there is something about synth pop that I do not connect with...any more. I used to. Back in the heyday of the genre, in the eighties, I used to like quite a bit of good synth pop, be it Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark or A Flock of Seagulls. But for me, it was a genre rooted firmly in the eighties. It is rather like a little kid whose growth was stunted by thyroid deficiency and never grew up. As I got older, I grew out of it because it never walked a journey with me.

Gorillaz made a career out being the first virtual band. Well Hot Chip seem to have taken that process one step further. The music comes across almost as if it was an accompaniment to the band's own cartoon series. Imagine if Trevor Horn of the Buggles set out to produce a band which comprised half of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and half of LCD Soundsystem. The band even try to look the part - a couple of geeks; one very clean cut young man in a brown suit; daddy - older than the rest with beard to match and the delinquent son.

"Made in the Dark" is essentially a danceable synth-pop album in search of a permanent home. It lacks identity and above all it lacks focus. You almost know it is going to be hyped to hell and sure enough it has the kiss of death from the New Musical Express. Yet the band are far from pioneers of a genre which has been around, in much more impressive form at times, for over 25 years. I know that revivals are all the rage, but if you are not going to make any advances on what has gone before, then let the dead rest. After all, if you're going to raise a zombie from the grave, at least have it eat brains and shuffle around awkwardly. A zombie who politely introduces himself as Geoff and sits down at the table to a meal of nut roast and organic vegetables is hardly going to justify the cost and effort of the reanimation process.

It is not bad, in the sense that it is not any good, it just is not. That may be hard to understand, but those who have read my reviews will know that I look for an emotional connection in music. "Made in the Dark" simply fails to deliver it. You can put it on and then do something else, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is on, until it stops. That is the simplest definition I can come up with for wallpaper-music. It never at any point rises above the mediocre, though on one or two occasions it falls below it - the awful "Bendable Poseable" and the rather silly "Shake a Fist" being the obvious examples. Only one track threatens to buck the trend, "Out at the Pictures" being okay. But that is it.

So what we have then is an album which draws heavily from the heyday of synth-pop in the eighties without any of the originality and unfortunately gravitating too close to the innate sterility of it. It is retro without seeking to be and therefore sounds dated. Above all it is extremely disappointing.
Rating: 4/10

Review:

on 2008-03-17 xtal Said:

Made in the Dark had a real chance at changing Hot Chip's image. No, there's nothing wrong with their image, and no I don't believe change is necessary at every single turn of the road. But they could have changed just for the sake of change and unpredictability- though it's a bit more complicated than that, and I don't fully discredit their efforts.

To begin, I make light of the fact that Made in the Dark suffers from an all-too-common fate in the popular music world: 'too long-itis'. When I was younger I thought that long pop/rock albums were great. Quantity rules, woohoo! I worshipped double and triple album rock-operas. Okay, they're not all "operas" but that's usually the finest example there is. Now that I'm a bit older I'm also a bit smarter (but not that smart). I awoke from my snobby teen shackles and realised that just because something is 76 minutes long doesn't mean it's automatically great; quite the opposite in fact. It's very good to be freed from these shackles. On my high horse I laughed at those who didn't have the attention span, but now I see that it was I who should have been laughed at. It has nothing to do with that, nor any other snide remarks such as "if you can't put in the time then I guess you don't appreciate or understand it". Also untrue. I was so wrong: why put in the time when more often than not, all you're putting your time in to is the laziness of the maker? I've found it to be a lesson in all aspects of my life, not just music: less is more. I will always favour the concise pop album over the grand wankery of the typical rock marathon. Give me a sweet 3 second hook over a shabby 9 minute guitar solo.

Now, of course, there are always exceptions and I by no means turn my back on the epic. If you have the right ingredients then you are permitted to play away as long as you like. Some notable allowances are the following: experimentalism that maintains at least relative interest (the White Album), minimalism that doesn't hit you over the head and respects your intelligence (Selected Ambient Works II), or the outright ability to maintain such awesomeness throughout that it could go on for days and you would happily oblige (Minimum-Maximum). There are many other reference points but there is no need to list any more. You now know what I'm talking about.

As it happens, Hot Chip's first two albums fall into some of the above categories. All three of their albums fall in the 50-55 minute range which isn't too bad, but it's not easy to pull off. Impressively they did twice in a row. Coming on Strong was an obvious debut, but it also had very interesting touches of experimenting and randomness. 'Crap Kraft Dinner' and 'You Ride, We Ride, in My Ride' were the type of songs that didn't let Coming on Strong become obnoxious or boring. It was different enough to keep your taste buds satisfied. Don't even get me started on The Warning. I truly fell in love with Hot Chip here; The one-two-three punch of 'Careful', 'And I Was a Boy from School', and 'Colours' is the musical equivalent of travelling the galaxy with a pair of those 3d-glasses on your face. They somehow maintain that level of excitement and glee and once again justify a longer-than-it-should-be pop record. The Warning is so brilliant to me that when I heard about Made in the Dark I expected, fairly, something 1/10th of its beauty. I also expected the length to be toned down, knowing that they couldn't keep this streak going, and that's okay. This is the change I spoke of: make an album half the size of its predecessors and fool everyone with a 30 minute jaunt. It's evident this could have been done. Unfortunately, we're given another 50+ minute trip including, what I think to be, some of the group's most unlabanced material yet.

I have to say the ballads are lovely and add a lot of depth to a band many know only for their monkeys with miniature cymbals. The title track itself is just perfect and really shows that along with all the fun this band clearly has, these guys can be very serious songwriters too. On paper the balance of the album here should be no different than in the past. The Warning was mainly comprised of the sentimental dance songs (Boy from School, So Glad to See You, Careful) and the goofy dance songs (Over and Over, Breakdown, Tchaparian). Made in the Dark, however, is made of its sentimental ballads (In the Privacy of Our Love, Whistle for Will, and its title track) and its just plain goofy-aggro dance songs (Shake a Fist, Bendable Poseable, Don't Dance) that, in my opinion, completely miss the dance floor. Compared to The Warning the tracklisting here is terrible. The songs are forced together awkwardly in an attempt to even out the ballads from the poppier numbers, which really just damages the sincerity of the whole thing. I'll just say that a few of these songs are totally awful and don't belong on this final product. Despite that there is still listenability here, it is very disappointing.

Made in the Dark is so unnecessarily overlong that it actually hurts. 'Hold On', 'Touch Too Much', 'Bendable Poseable', and 'Shake a Fist' are all failures. 'Out at the Pictures' starts as a promising opener but then trudges the same ground that the rest of these tracks do. 'Ready for the Floor' is competent when compared to average fare, but it has nothing on past Hot Chip singles like '(Just Like We) Breakdown' or 'Over and Over'. It doesn't brim with the effortlessness of those songs. It's always fun to fix albums to your own liking, but this is one that truly could have gone through the experience before being released. Made in the Dark could be a seriously strong album at just under 30 minutes, and probably should have opened with a more dynamic duo such as 'We're Looking for a Lot of Love' and 'Wrestlers' (which oozes genius, by the way).

Cut and paste all you like, play 'Wrestlers' five times in a row, bookend this album with Love; whatever you do, you can't change Made in the Dark. While Hot Chip no doubt found a lot of love they were seeking, this record was indisputably edited in the dark.
Rating: 6/10