The first sound that bombards you on the new Japandroids album, Celebration Rock, is the far off explosions of high up fireworks. It sounded odd at first listen - when do you ever hear fireworks without seeing them? When you can only hear fireworks, what then do you see? I see fourths of July from years past, gone, burned all up. Running around with the sparklers of serene childhood and tossing into the air the Budweiser cans of wild youth. Of celebration. Not in a patriotic, God bless America sense. More of a Let's Celebrate Today! Tonight! This Summer! Celebrate surrounded by friends because this surely cannot last forever.
"We down our drinks in a funnel of friends, We burn our plans down to the end!" from "Days of Wine and Roses"
The Japandroids album is perfectly named. Each song rings and rocks as celebrations themselves. Fist shaking, wild dancing celebrations. And even though it is a 2012 album that fits well in 2012, the songs, just like the fireworks, make me nostalgic.
The music. The songs explode in their own colors and patterns just like each singular firework that makes up the collective show. There are no subtle, sleeping songs here, just as there are no quiet fireworks. The tone is set from the booming opening song "Days of Wine and Roses", through standout tracks "Fire's Highway," "Younger Us," and "The House That Heaven Built," right up to the closer, "Continuous Thunder." It is rare to hear a band of just two people rocking so fucking loud. And you want to rock along with them. Sing along with each "WHOAH-OH-OH-OHHHHHH!"
The attack of their songs, shredding distortion, riffs and chord changes remind me of Husker-Du, with the hooks of Superchunk. The choruses remind me in the best way of the post-punk of mid to late 1980s American Underground bands, meeting the harder, louder indie rock of the 1990s. All of this combines to create one of my favorite albums of 2012.
The first I ever heard of Hot Chip was back in 2005 in a Myspace message (remember those?) from Devin. It read:
Here is what I am listening to right now - Hot Chip, Cut Copy and Quantic Soul Orchestra.
That was the entirety of the message and I appreciated it s brevity. It allowed me to more quickly fire up my music downloading service and do some suggestion-inspired, new music investigation. I started with Hot Chip, and while I do like Cut Copy, Hot Chip was the prize in this trio recommendation (Quantic Soul Orchestra issome nice background music. Nothing life-changing).
I downloaded "The Beach Party" off their first full-length Comin' On Strong (2005). It was a nice sample of the soft electronic grooves, laptop funk and silly lyrics ("I'm like Stevie Wonder but I can see things") that constituted, I would later learn, the entire Hot Chip debut album. I did purchase it. One of the greatest surprises in buying an album is when you realize that the rest of the record is better than the the song that compelled you to make the purchase. My three standout tracks are "Shiny Escalade," "You Ride, We Ride. In My Ride," and "Crap Kraft Dinner." They may also be the most understated tracks on the album. They're soft. Less funky. Less electro-party groove. They are electronic beds to lie upon, close your eyes and float away. Smiling. There was a week in the spring of 2006 when I played "Crap Kraft Dinner" everyday. Seriously. It still stands as my favorite track by Hot Chip, despite all of their sonic and tonal evolutions. The velvet keyboards and saxophones underneath the fragile voice of Alexis Taylor always remind me of those sunny spring days, me lounging outside my Redondo beach apartment, surrounded by the high fence and Hot Chip.
"Crap Kraft Dinner":
Then in 2006, The Warning was released. I was hooked on the Hot Chip. It was a no-brainer purchase. And I wasn't disappointed. The Warning was everything I could have hoped for in a follow-up album. Hot Chip developed their sound, pushed new electronic boundaries and noises and fabricated even more catchy hooks. It's one of those albums that when you listen to it for the first time, you cannot wait to hear what the next track will sound like. An exciting whirlwind of sonic pleasures. The songs are faster, louder, and denser than those from the debut album. But no matter how loud Hot Chip gets, the tenderness in their songwriting, the moments when you almost feel a tear forming in your eye, still shine. This is abundantly present in the standout track, "And I Was A Boy From School" - "We tried but we didn't have long/We tried but we don't belong." This album formed a soundtrack for my wild, exciting, self-destructive party summer of 2006. Each night as Esther, Phil and I got ready to head out to some Hollywood party we would blast and dance to The Warning. And each hard, hungover morning, as I wallowed in a bit of self-loathing I would play the closing track "No Fit State." (I'm in no fit state/I'm in no fit shape.)
"The Warning" (I have no idea who these kids are making this video. They're not Hot Chip. Cool video anyways.
Hot Chip hit its highest point musically with their third record, Made in the Dark (2008). As with any great band that manages to captivate my attention while they are still recording, hot Chip managed to grow in their song-writing, production, and the overall, indescribable feel in their music. Made in the Dark sounds like it is a greatest hits record. But it's not. It is the summation of everything Hot Chip could do, would do, and should do. It is rare to hear such magnificent actual song-writing in electronic music (maybe I need to study more electronic music). Make these songs acoustic, strip the sonic layers (a Hot Chip Unplugged!), and the songs would still simply be wonderful. When the deeper, soulful voice of Joe Goddard appears pleasantly (always pleasantly) in songs like "Ready for the Floor", you have to just smile and say Yes, this IS Hot Chip ("You're my number one guy!"). This album also has the special distinction of being the first Hot Chip record to be released while my wife and I were together (weird sentence, and still together!) - not even yet engaged.
"One Pure Thought"
So if Made in the Dark was Hot Chip's highest point, my description implies that their latest two releases fall short of the zenith it established. It's not that bad, I mean come on, Made in the Dark is fucking fabulous. 2010's One Life Stand is still a good album. But it's different. And again, it's not a bad thing. Bands do need to try new things on each subsequent album to hold my attention. On this album, Hot Chip put on full display their house music influences. The soulful, laptop-Stevie-Wonder-fun is missing, though. It is replaced by a danceable, engaging, though somber set of songs. Obviously highlights are the two singles, the title track "One Life Stand" and the superb Depeche Mode reminiscent "Take It In." I just feel that the rest of this somber album does not extend much further.
Take It In (PS. I made this video)
A new Hot Chip album is still an automatic purchase for me. This year the London boys released In Our Heads, another Casio (think a bit of Chromeo somewhere in the track "Night and Day") and house-inspired set of songs. All touched with still a taste of somber love. I hate when I become one of those music snobs who says that a band's new album cannot compare to their previous output. So I won't. I was not as impressed with it upon my first listen. But In Our Heads deserves several listens to appreciate its feel. Every time I hit play on this album I find more to appreciate. "Flutes" is simply sublime. All seven minutes of it. I'm going to hold off on saying any more about In Our Heads. I need to listen to it for the rest of the year to get a better grasp of what Hot Chip has done here. I wonder where this album will end up on my year end list...
