Hot Hot Heat - Future Breeds
Review by Jack Foley
VANCOUVER’S Hot Hot Heat are an enigma… sometimes brilliant, sometimes irritating, their fifth studio album Future Breeds is a telling combination of both!
If anything, it marks a transition for them as the boys have decided that a new batch of striking melodies and grooves would form the basis for the studios sessions that followed.
Hence, they placed an emphasis on crafting songs that added something different to the mix and recorded it in their own studio for the very first time with production and engineering help from frontman Steve Bays.
The result is as high-energy and melodic as we’ve come to expect from Hot Hot Heat, albeit with a slightly more spiky – and dare we say Strokesian – edge. There’s also a lot of production embellishments that don’t always work.
Album opener YVR sets the general tone, with some edgy vocals married to punky, warped guitar riffs and some fizzing production values. It stays melodic but seems to pack more menace than a lot of Hot Hot Heat stuff.
Much better is the follow-up 21@12, which employs Blur-esque indie-pop guitar hooks, a screaming synth-riff and a stretched set of vocals from Bays that boast genuine cross-Atlantic appeal, while Goddess on The Prairie drops one of the best choruses on the LP and some more thrilling guitar-work.
The somewhat ironic Nobody’s Accusing You (Of Having A Good Time) brings the album to a rabble-rousing finale that’s excellent fun, while Jedidiah sounds like a vibrant soundclash between The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand. It’s sharp, snappy and Hot Hot Heat at their best.
Alas, some of what comes in between these hits fails to measure up or satisfy in the slightest. Experimental indulgences such as JFK’s LSD are just too trippy and annoying (like a bad acid trip), while some of the more perfunctory punk-pop moments simply wash over you (such as Times A Thousand or Implosionatic).
A track like Buzinezz As Usual, meanwhile, gets a little too carried away with quirks… such as the opening sound embellishments and trippy piano chords. It’s more annoying than catchy.
The lasting impression, therefore, is that Hot Hot Heat’s latest only really comes good in fits and starts… and that’s disappointing.
Download picks: Nobody’s Accusing You (Of Having A Good Time), 21@12, Goddess on The Prairie, Jedidiah
Track listing: