Hot Chip: In Our Heads

By Jacob Ganz, NPR Music

The pair of voices at the center of the British electronic quintet Hot Chip seem, at first, to divide the band into two sides: animal and mechanical. Joe Goddard, the deeper-voiced of the two singers, smooth and sleepy; Alexis Taylor, who more often takes the lead, can sound crushed, hypnotized, fragile, perpetually on the verge of tears. He's like a robot processing a first flush of emotion. Goddard's more like a friendly grizzly.

In Our Heads, the band's excellent fifth album, is "we." It pops up again and again, and underlines the single topic that most obsesses Hot Chip's songs — the need for human connection expressed through desire (almost always to dance) and the rush of freedom that comes with fulfilling that need.

In Our Heads will be available to stream on demand from June 4th through June 11th, 2012.