Hot Hot Heat

For the uninitiated, Hot Hot Heat sounds like what you’d get if you put Gang of Four into a modern pop-rock format. The music is angular and quirky, but the band has taken an even poppier turn on Elevator. This record has pop hooks coming out the yin-yang! At one point on “Pickin’ It Up,” the band sounds like it’s channeling early Elvis Costello and the Attractions, a good thing in my book. Some H3 fans out there probably feel betrayed because the band has forgone some of the angularity in its sound to make room for more hooks, but I think the band is now showing it can appeal to the masses as well as to hipsters. It’s danceable and catchy, and—really now—if Hot Hot Heat replaced Britney Spears as the masses’ pop act of choice, wouldn’t that be a good thing?