Hot Chip release wild new single ‘Freakout/Release’
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Credit: Press
Hot Chip return with their best album yet ‘Freakout/Release’
Hot Chip - 'Freakout/Release'
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One of the most consistent outfits of our time, electronic masters Hot Chip have returned with their hotly anticipated eighth album Freakout/Release.
The band’s finest to date, it sees the band get much darker, mature, and dynamic than ever before, and although there are still flecks of the young hipsters who burst onto the scene in the noughties with an affinity for the analogue sounds of the 1980s with opuses such as The Warning and Made in the Dark, they are now in a different chapter of their career, one that is more refined and flexible.
The clear influences of The Beastie Boys, OMD, and other pioneers of electronic sounds course through the record, however, there are also more funk, rock, and ambient influences mixed in making Freakout/Release, so multifaceted that it has a re-listenable essence, a testament to just how dextrous Hot Chip are as an outfit.
In truth, the album is without an obvious downside, and its heady textures are perfect for the summer, it’s just a shame it wasn’t released back in May, so we could enjoy it for the whole of the sunny period. Brimming with vibrant moments, highlights include the pounding title track, the all-consuming ‘Not Alone’, and the reflective ‘The Evil That Men Do’.
Augmenting the brilliance of the record is Candian rapper Cadence Weapon who features on ‘The Evil That Men Do’ and Lou Hayter lending her vocals to ‘Hard to Be Funky’. However, the most rivetting appearance comes from Belgian legends Soulwax who add that extra bit of electronic bite to the title track, which is the album’s most visceral point.
Written and recorded in the band’s Relax & Enjoy studio in East London, you can tell that’s exactly what they were doing. Enjoying their time together after the pandemic, this elation and comfort carries the record, with the band refreshed by being together for the first time since 2019, having fun with their craft. For anyone who has seen Hot Chip live, you will note that Freakout/Release is as close to replicating their live show as they’ve got to date.
“By the time we were able to be back together, we were turning on a tap and having a lot of ideas being poured out quite quickly”, says frontman Alexis Taylor of the band’s renewed verve. Adding to the natural sound of the record, Al Doyle adds, “Everything’s on all the time, and it’s very easy to capture what we’re doing.”
As well as the music being taken up a few notches, the lyrics are also much better than on the band’s previous releases. The record is brimming with personal and political reflections that were inspired by the strange juncture the world currently finds itself at. “We were living through a period where it was very easy to feel like people were losing control of their lives in different ways,” Joe Goddard explains. “There’s a darkness that runs through a lot of those tracks.”
Freakout/Release is a sign of things to come for Hot Chip, and it confirms that they’re not going anywhere. It’s about time that they start being recognised as one of the finest outfits of their generation, as creative misfires are clearly total anathema to them.
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