Hot Chip - One Life Stand (2/9/10)

Hot Chip has always been a band with a deep-seated penchant for contrast. The most obvious example can be found in their 2005 album Coming On Strong, where the disparity between lyrics like “Give up all you suckers/We the tightest motherfuckers/And you never seen us talking shit before now” and the skinny white British guy in horn-rimmed glasses who sings them makes for a pretty amusing study in sarcasm. Newest album One Life Stand offers more proof of Hot Chip’s ability to find triumph in disparity, but it does so in a very different way.

Ultimately, One Life Stand prevails as a huge swirling musical embrace about love in all its various forms. With a notable shift toward a soulful house-influenced sound, the album blossoms with a slew of highly romantic dance-ballads that nimbly fuse the acoustic with the electronic. From the piano-driven live drums and techno-manipulations of “Hand Me Down Your Love,” to the majestic string arrangements and Kanye-worthy auto-tune of “I Feel Better,” nearly every song is a paradigm of brilliantly rendered contrast. Reigning supreme is lead singer Alexis Taylor’s chimerical falsetto, which soars lithely over everything, occasionally complemented by the cavernous undertones of co-vocalist Joe Goddard. These vocal collaborations are most notable in the songs that explore alternative figurations of love, such as the fraternal harmonizing of “Brothers” and the spindly little maternally-minded gem “Alley Cats”—a song about “when you're feeling something that you really love is coming to an end, and saying that's not really possible.”

The album hits its stride with the pulsating title track. "One Life Stand" opens with a ridiculously catchy beat and some ominous-sounding electronic noise. Lyrically, it evolves from rather trivializing opening verses (“Tell me what you're playing”) into an intensely heartfelt and downright cuddly chorus (“I only wanna be your one life stand/ Tell me do you stand by your whole man?”) that showcases the best of Taylor’s vocal abilities and encapsulates the album’s overarching theme. As Taylor explained in a November 2009 interview with Pitchfork, “I'm talking about turning a one night stand into someone's whole life…and I think that's quite a nice thing to say.” And he’s right; it is quite nice, and a refreshing sentiment in today’s cynical world. Like that now-infamous YouTube video of the wedding where everybody dances up the aisle in sunglasses, “One Life Stand” manages to sound simultaneously classic and fresh while still giving you that old warm fuzzy feeling.


The most dubious turn comes with “Slush,” in which This Heat drummer Charles Hayward plays and sings harmony. Taylor describes Hayward’s role as “one of the most special things about the album… because he's someone that I really look up to and love,” but the song drags and vacillates in its redundant lack of beats, becoming the kind of track that most will end up skipping after a listen or two. However, its ultimate value is revealed around the 4:30 mark with a belated transition into the profound repetition of “Don’t I know there is a God?” which serves to round out the album’s trifecta of love—romantic, familial, and divine.

In light of past endeavors, the unexpected seriousness of this album paired with the often-saccharine lyrics (“I only want one want night/ Together in our arms/ This is the longest night/ We’re meeting arms to arms”) may tempt some to write it off as simply Hot Chip’s latest bout of sarcasm. And yet, amidst such earnest delivery and luminous cohesion, doing so would feel just plain wrong. Rather, One Life Stand reveals how the band has mellowed out without selling out, matured without losing what makes them unique. There’s really something for everybody here, but the overall message seems to be that love is all around, even here, even now, and Hot Chip’s ability to express this sentiment without sounding completely lame stands as a testament to both their inherent coolness and their expectation-defying talent.

Grade: A-

Review by Hilary Cadigan

Monsters of Folk - Album Review (9/22/09)

Monsters of Folk sets up an exciting premise—Jim James (My Morning Jacket), M. Ward, Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes drummer and Saddle Creek producer) come together Traveling Wilburys-style in fits and bursts over a 5 year period, after first touring together in 2004. While the eponymous album certainly doesn’t defy any of their respective methodologies, it does generate enjoyable results.

The atmosphere is egalitarian rather than narcissistic; in fact, the mathematical division of lead vocals is almost comical in its precision, with each of the three vocalists getting almost exactly equal time in the spotlight. However, there is a laid-back organic quality that keeps the record from becoming too formulaic. “One of our only rules was that we would only be the four of us playing everything. So that was kind of the one rule, if there was a rule,” said Oberst in a recent interview. Especially on tracks like “Baby Boomer” and “Whole Lotta Losin,” there is a very pleasant “hanging out in the barn laying down jams and drinking PBR” vibe—nothing too striking, just fun, laid-back music made between friends. Ultimately, Monsters of Folk is just that. And it works, especially when these friends happen to be some of the most influential musicians of the decade.


That being said, the album is certainly not without its flaws. Cohesion between tracks is ostensibly sacrificed in favor of cohesion between group members—despite, or perhaps because the communal vibes are so palpable, the result is a loose and rambling record. The album peaks early (as in, first track early) with “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.),” which provides a nice abstract and a thematic focus—“if your love’s still around why do we suffer?” asks the poignant chorus, harmonizing over rippling harp and rather unexpected trip-hop beat. The track strikes a meticulous balance between poignant and playful that could be the aim of the record as a whole, though it is never again crystallized in such a way. Consequently, “Dear God” sets a high musical precedent that gets a little lost as the album ambles on for 14 more countrified tracks, thus setting us up for a bit of a letdown.

The particular style of each artist emerges immediately continues to build as the record plays on. Oberst comes across as he always does—overwrought and slightly exasperating, though he is clearly trying to fit in here. Ward on the other hand may come off a bit lazy, adhering to his typically simplistic though certainly not unlikable folk style. He hits his stride however in the gorgeous “Slow Down Jo,” a soothing lullaby that almost sounds like Brightblack Morning Light. Mogis holds it down with smooth production and a winning guitar solo or two, smartly allowing the album to develop with its own natural progression rather than forcing it to be something it’s not.

In the end, despite his egalitarian intentions, this album has Jim James written all over it—he seems to be channeling a recent George Harrison fixation with August’s tribute album and now this, if we’re going to run with the oft-mentioned Traveling Wilburys association. Regardless, everything he’s been doing lately has been infused with a sense of fearless experimentation, and for his part, this album is no exception. He glides humbly from the upbeat pop beats of “Losin Your Head” to the mournful seep of “His Master’s Voice,” and often saves his cohorts from themselves by layering that characteristic swooning falsetto under their ramblings, as in the Oberst-driven “Temazcal.” Jim James is everything we want and need in a musician in this day and age—wildly talented but delightfully unpretentious, a Renaissance man rather than an egotistical rock star. And he puts on a fantastic show.

Grade: B+

Review by Hilary Cadigan