Hot Hot Heat
Elevator
(Sire)
Victoria’s Hot Hot Heat has released the hotly anticipated follow-up to 2002’s Make Up the Breakdown, Elevator. What made that debut so fantastic was that it had a slew of tracks so insanely catchy (“Bandages,” “Talk to Me, Dance with Me,” “No, Not Now”) that they’d lodge themselves deep inside your noggin’ and you’d find yourself humming weeks later. But the same energy that helped to pave the way for the new-wave surge in 2004 is glaringly absent here. There are moments where that urgency flares up, but there are also moments when Hot Hot Heat is left sounding like Prozzak. Unfortunately the sophomore jinx has found the quartet, leaving them with an Elevator of hype, rather than one of substance.
—Trevor Savory
categories: Canadian artist,Juno nominee (2006)
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
