Hot Chip: "Huarache Lights"

Hot Chip‘s longevity is proof positive that you can build a band around the concept of “emotional intelligence.” Blow the phrase up into its components, and the descriptors still apply: whether singing with a smirk or writing intense, personal reflections on every possible kind of love, this is not a band that’s ever been afraid of sentiment. Their appetite for influence can only be called omnivorous, and their catalogue of reference points and clever quips is encyclopedic at this point. But it’s truer to Hot Chip’s mission if you keep the phrase intact. Loneliness, platonic adoration, questions of faith and reverence, the complicated dynamics of the creative process: they’re all treated with maturity and evaluated with a real sincerity and gentleness, from uptempo quasi-club cuts to bleary, tea-steam ballads.

“Huarache Lights” is the first single from their sixth album, Why Make Sense?, and it strikes the same balance between smart and semi-sappy that Hot Chip have been honing for over a decade. At a glance, it’s a standard-issue mid-tempo banger with seared synths and a classic First Choice reference via a DJ Rashad sample; poke beneath the surface, and you’ll uncover a meditation on the alternating comfort and anxiety that stem from getting older. For a song whose title references a line of fashion-forward sneakers, it’s surprisingly resonant and dense; for Hot Chip, it’s par for the course.

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