“Ready for the Floor,” maybe the best and worst thing to have happened to Hot Chip. Like a positive for everyone, the quirky electro-dance number will remain a definitive necessity for all party mixes well into The Oughts. However, if you’re seeking longevity as a band, the party mix is not a preferred natural habitat. Good for Hot Chip, “Thieves in the Night” is not a single; it is merely the first song on a very solid album.
“Thieves in the Night” will be Hot Chip’s concert opener. Oh, it’s the stuff concert openers are made of: a theatrical synth organ to begin. Soon it disappears and a pulsing bass drum chugs on alone (this is the part where the audience really cheers in anticipation.) A tune begins to bubble up real subtle and Alexis Taylor’s silky smooth voice glides in so natural, like it was always there.
He begins “my friend once told me something so right/he said to be careful of thieves in the night (woah -ooh – woah,)” an obscure and not so enticing opening line. However, it soon becomes clear that the song, like so much of Hot Chip, is about wanting, nay, needing to hold onto love, which can be too easily torn away.
Finally, the hook drops thus: “Happiness is what we all want.” It’s an utterly simple sentiment. Yet, these genuinely dorky Brits have sung so much about the love they’ve lost and the happiness they just haven’t quite got, that to hear Taylor sing this line aloud feels potent and so, so satisfying.
That’s how you start an album. One Life Stand hits stores February 9th.
Listen to the track here via We All Want Someone To Shout For!
