In 2005, the London-based electro-pop act Hot Chip was “Down With Prince.” Three years later, on their third album, they’re doubling up with R. Kelly (“Wrestlers”), falling in love with UB40 (“We’re Looking For A Lot Of Love”), and dutch-passing with Missy and Timbaland (“Shake A Fist”). For a bunch of pasty Brits behind synthesizers, these are difficult sounds and affectations to borrow without seeming a tad insincere, which might have been why Hot Chip kept their heels dug into electro territory on 2006’s The Warning. Yet here’s “Ready For The Floor,” a double-time electronic revision of 1960’s girl-group doo-wop, and reedy frontman Alexis Taylor sells the lullaby melody without a wink.
Later in “Wrestlers,” Taylor narrates his own “Trapped In The Closet” chapter — “don’t fight dirty, don’t hit me with the chair” over deliberate on the - beat piano hits and handclaps. Factor in a pair of bare-skinned piano ballads, a fierce disco number called “Hold On,” and the band’s cartoonish take on heavy metal (“Bendable Poseable”), and you begin to understand Hot Chip’s rarity and charm: They grab hold of genres long stuck in straitjackets and, if only for a few minutes a pop, let them run amok.
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