Hot Chip – Freakout/Release
Front-loaded with fun, Freakout/Release sets expectations high but doesn't quite deliver
Previous Hot Chip albums have always had distinct standalone identities (The Warning – twinkly; Made In the Dark – bass!; One Life Stand – adagio for strings), but this is something that’s sadly missing from Freakout/Release. It has a powerhouse opening in Down (starring a funky sample taken from Universal Togetherness Band’s More Than Enough) into Eleanor, which is not only infectious and extremely danceable, but also features a lengthy middle eight in which Alexis Taylor uses a rambling metaphor to compare the eponymous female to André the Giant, because Taylor knows what women want.
These two, immediately followed by the album’s title track, whose heavy robotic voices and Sunshine of Your Love-adjacent riff are a welcome hark back to the cheekiness of early Hot Chip, set expectations high. But the decision to front-load the album with singles means that you experience a jarring drop in energy and quality three songs in. After that Freakout/Release settles into songs that, while alright, sound a bit like the product of an AI program that has been made to listen to 100 hours of Hot Chip and then generate its own imitation. So while Hot Chip fans should definitely stick the album on, when to turn it off again is up to them.
Listen to: Down, Time, Miss the Bliss