New Music Tuesdays: Metronomy and The Chap

Submitted by Rohan, who holds some strong opinions about music and wants to share them with TNG readers.

Metronomy's "My Heart Rate Rapid"

Let me start by saying I was a huge Hot Chip fan. Their first record, Coming on Strong, was a brilliant piece of oddball pop, and The Warning stands as the closest they can get to perfection. Made in the Dark, left me cold, and though it has good singles, Hot Chip just didn’t fully deliver.

All of this brings me to two (newer) bands that make music like Hot Chip, but are more than "sound-alikes." Metronomy and The Chap, both out of England, take different parts of the Hot Chip sound and create pop music that is wild and wonderful.

Metronomy is a solo project on record, but live they are a three piece who wear Push Lights on their chest and engage in synchronized dancing. Making their name through remixes and touring, Metronomy are sure to have a break-out year. Their new record, Nights Out, (released internationally on the Sept. 8) is fantastic. Nights Out is a full on party, songs like “My Heart Rate Rapid” can keep booties shaking all night.

“Radio Ladio” embodies the prankster-spirit of Coming On Strong, and contains one of the best endings on the record. New single "Heartbreaker" might just be the jam of the year, and mark my words: It’s gonna show up all over the place.

Metronomy's "Heartbreaker"

The Chap’s electro-tinged pop songs are more avant-garde in their delivery. The band has actually been around since 2002, but their new record, Mega-Breakfast, is their first to be domestically released. The Chap is all over the place, cherry picking the best parts of different genres and blending into an arty mess.

Through all the weirdness, The Chap’s high-art lo-fi aesthetic is still made for the dance floor. Mega-Breakfast smoothes out some of the more “tinny” laptop speaker beats into fully fledged bangers. Looping vocals give an operatic delivery (see “Fun and Interesting”), while heavy guitars turn single “Proper Rock” into – ahem – the most “proper” song on the record.

The Chap's "Fun and Interesting"

While neither band has any dates around this neck of the woods, there are plenty of You-Tube videos to make up for it.

(Metronomy’s Nights Out is available now as a very expensive import, but hey, we’ve got the Internet right? The Chap’s Mega Breakfast is now available on Ghostly International)