Canadian purveyors of high-energy, hook-laden power/punk/pop, Hot Hot Heat’s hyperactive, exuberant, totally derivative caffeine-rush brew shares several backward-gazing tendencies with Franz Ferdinand and the Killers: neo-Mancunian walls of sound, an undeniable flair for the creation of irresistibly catchy hooks, the suspicion of a lack of lyrical depth, and a general awe and reverence for all things Anglo and early-‘80s. New New Wave, you might call it. (Did the Donnie Darko soundtrack kickstart this phenomenon?)
Keyboardist/vocalist Steve Bays yelps, yowls and sneers with gallons of spirit in an accent so borderline faux-English the band have drawn XTC comparisons, while impressively fuzzy, jagged guitar work worships at the altar of Revolver and In The City-era Jam. This is no bad thing, and it’s not hard to see why hordes of Stateside teens sick of Offspring have taken the Heat to their hearts - they come across as acceptably feisty and fire-bellied without ever doing anything to seriously scare the parents, and there’s an appealing garage-band scrappiness to the sound that clearly belies their genuine melodic potency, best exemplified on the breathless openers ‘Running Out Of Time’ and ‘Goodnight Goodnight’.
Nonetheless, Elevator is safer-sounding, less adventurous and less exciting than their last blast Make Up The Breakdown, an evolution possibly not unrelated to their being snapped up by a major label. The intimidating energy level remains undiminished, and there still isn’t a note out of place - all that’s missing is anything resembling a sharp edge. At its worst, the frantic cramming of hooks and harmony vocals can create a faintly twee, sugary effect, conjuring spectres of an amped-up They Might Be Giants. At its best, there’s more than enough bite and balls in the guitar work to render such objections irrelevant.
Lyrically, their compulsive stabs at clever wordplay veer from the pleasing (‘Running with scissors wasn’t smart/ I tripped you up and cut open your heart’) to the near-excruciating (‘I was picked up and dropped off in a culture counter-clockwise turned around’) but though genuine substance is in fairly negligible supply, one suspects the Heat’s kinetic, visceral music was never designed for minute analytical dissection anyway.
Complaints about originality aside, Elevator’s still a highly accessible and thoroughly competent blast of melodious guitar-rock. Endlessly energetic, HHH are neither destined nor intended to change any lives, but they’ve located a sound of their own (if not a strikingly new one) and would doubtless prove near-irresisitible in a live context. Jump into the furnace…