Hot Chip - Freakout/Release
Hot Chip
Freakout/Release
By: Dean Washmore
Freakout/Release is a stick of bubble gum - exciting for 10 seconds before becoming a tiresome nuisance that you discard and forget.
While Hot Chip has impressively managed to produce ‘generally above-average albums’ for nearly two decades, Freakout/Release reflects their career trajectory. That is - progressively losing steam over time.
Hot Chip failed to capitalize on their duo of fantastic albums, The Warning in 2006 and 2008’s Made In the Dark, with any specifically important, focused, or impactful music since.
Those two albums were littered with singles worth shouting and moving your body to. With certified classics like “Over and Over,” “Boy From School,” and “Ready For The Floor,” the stage was set for being shot into the electro-pop stratosphere.
However, since then, it’s been a mixed bag of slightly different and flat attempts to keep the momentum going. With Freakout/Release, it feels like Hot Chip is simply content with going through the motions.
Freakout/Release is a glossy, shiny, polished, disco-pop album paradoxically void of any memorable moments. It’s painfully melancholy - forcing the listener to roll their eyes with lyrics like:
“Ain’t it hard to be funky when you’re not feeling sexy?
And it’s hard to feel sexy when you’re not very funky.”
It’s hard to fathom that a quintet of accomplished musicians sound like they put so little effort into the songwriting. Each of the 11 tracks on the record feels aimless, with no progression or purpose to its execution.
There is a lack of exploration or heart across the album, making the experience feel like Freakout/Release was a forced project more than anything else. The majority of the songs go nowhere, fading in and out of basic A/B/A/B song structure or aimlessly repeating into oblivion.
While wading into the record is effortless at first, with inoffensive dance floor tracks like “Down” and “Eleanor,” that while unexceptional, are enjoyable - the back half of Freakout/Release is a real struggle.
It’s a shame that Freakout/Release falls so flat. Its heart is hollow, and its purpose is hard to make out.
There was a time when Hot Chip was must listen territory, standing on their own island of too-cool electro-pop that was fresh, unique, and memorable.
Unfortunately, Freakout/Release is everything but. It meshes into a uniform sound of sameness, nothing to grab onto, nothing to remember. For Hot Chip - there’s no shame in the legacy they’ve built to this point. In 25 years, “Shake a Fist” will still have its place on the sweaty dance floors.
But Freakout/Release will have no place in the future, few moments on the dance floor, and no place in your crowded Spotify playlists. Like a stick of bubble gum, after one use, you’ll throw it away and never think about it again.
