Hot Chip have, in recent years, been an effective remedy to pop music. Fun, diverse, absorbing: they have provided us with a reminder of how pop music should be written, and their latest edition to the medicine cabinet, ‘One Life Stand’, is just what the doctor ordered.

And the relief comes in the form of reliability – Hot Chip’s greatest strength is that they remain cemented to their middle-class English nature; men who struggle with their emotions, and keep them hidden in fear of rejection, or appearing impolite. Their leading single (One Life Stand) shows their ability to unabashedly relate this to their audiences; ‘Wishes keep remaining/Nothing will contain it/…Moments keep us guessing/and lead us from temptation’. This is consistent throughout the album, and as a very middle-class Englishman myself, their honesty is especially comforting and delightfully refreshing.

‘One Life Stand’ is incredibly catchy, thoughtful and quirky – vintage Hot Chip – whilst ‘Alley Cats’ is tranquil, allowing Alexis Taylor’s unique vocals to come into their own. The last track ‘Take It In’, ends the album on an entirely different note – a haunting penetrating riff and pained vocals, opening out into a joyous, mesmerizing chorus. The one unfortunate failing of this album however, is a pretty thin middle section. Most notably ‘Slush’ and ‘Keep Quiet’, songs which will most likely fall off the pop radar as nothing more than non-offensive album fillers.

Crucially however, they do not undermine the genius that Hot Chip have proved capable of, and ‘One Life Stand’ only strengthens a back catalogue that destines them to one of the most impressive greatest hits collection of any British pop act