★★★★☆
(Domino)
Despite their best efforts, Hot Chip have barely troubled the singles chart since Over and Over, their 2006 breakthrough hit. Yet these indie dance geeks have evolved into a formidable live band and their sixth album captures the giddy highs of a Hot Chip gig. Huarache Lights opens the record with an insistent, bouncy groove adorned with a Seventies Philadelphia soul sample, robotic talkbox effects and lyrics of professional self-doubt. In fact, the south Londoners’ songwriting is often sublime on this club music odyssey, which takes in brooding disco (Dark Night), Nineties R ’n’ B (Love Is the Future) and, on Started Right, retro funk reminiscent of Stevie Wonder. As a vocalist, Alexis Taylor is clearly no Stevie Wonder. But there’s no mistaking the quality of Hot Chip’s affecting dance anthems.