Listening to this can be addictive

Play it: Hot Chip - The Warning
Stream: Free AOL Album Stream

Hot Chip's third album The Warning is a delicious mix of twisted electro-metallic-indie dancepop, seeing the band move away from Prince and more toward DFA cohorts LCD Soundsystem. While their last album (Coming On Strong) had a great sense of humor ("Down With Prince",) it felt cold and even unfinished. The Warning, on the other hand, feels more thought out, and is as warm a techno album as you'll hear.

Take for instance the song "And I Was a Boy From School," which takes the untasteful "Music Sounds Better With You" (from Stardust) and makes it a smooth danceable ballad, complete with rubbery and twinkley synths and velvet harmonies from Alexis Taylor's lead vocal. The warning here, though, should be be careful with their first single, "Over and Over," as it will burrow into your skull to possibly never leave. I'm hoping it doesn't end up as an iPod ad, but it's probably inevitable that it's fate was sealed upon the first singing of the chorus.

Over and over / Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal / The joy of repetition really is in you.
- "Over and Over"

Their sense of humor is still intact, thankfully, which (I hope) is seen with the lyrics in the title track:

Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head/
Hot Chip will put you down, under the ground
- "The Warning"

Like I Am a Robot and Proud's release earlier this year (The Electricity In Your House Wants To Sing) The Warning is a both fun and sublime affair - nothing groundbreaking, but a release, nonetheless, that you'll find yourself going back to 'over and over' again (let that be the warning.)

tags: album review, music, hot chip, techno, indie rock, electronica, dfa, lcd soundsystem, rhapsody