Hot Hot Heat – Elevator (2005)

The Canadian indie rock band Hot Hot Heat was one of the best guitar-driven fast-tempo indie rock bands in mid-00s. Their songs have great melodies, a thing that cannot be said of many other similar bands of that period. I was really into bands like this around the time when this album was released. Elevator is the band's second album and in my opinion it's their greatest album to date. It has the youthful attitude of the debut album, but the compositions are a lot more well thought of. In the following albums, Hot Hot Heat lost some of its edge as their sounds became more commercial. I bought the album on a vinyl and I remember thinking that this gatefold sleeve was really cool. This was the time when I started buying more and more albums on vinyl and I was extremely fond of all of my newly bought vinyl albums.



I really like the album cover where the band members are hanging from strings being manipulated by some kind of hidden puppeteer. The track listing in the back is in reverse order, trying to mimic an actual elevator where number one is at the bottom.

I think one of the reasons why I happened to find this particular band was that they were signed to Sub Pop. Sub Pop was my favourite indie record label around that time, because it seemed that pretty much everything they released was good. I remember looking for CDs at my local library that were released by Sub Pop and borrowing those, because almost without an exception I really liked them.

After a short intro song, the album kicks in with one of the biggest hits of the album, Running Out of Time. I really like the uptempo verse that grows until the chorus kicks in and brings in this cool groovy mellowness. The next song, Goodnight Goodnight continues really strong. This is an excellent party song despite of its name that would suggest the end of the evening. The melody is beautifully well constructed. Ladies and Gentleman changes the mood slightly. The mood is darker and more rhythmic than melodic. This song kind of reminds me of Arctic Monkeys who released their debut album one year later. You Owe Me An IOU has some great piano sounds on top of a groovy beat mainly carried by the bass line. The chorus makes you nod your head along. Jingle Jangle starts off quite lazily, but when the song gets properly started it's got as much energy as the first half of the album. I like the small melody tricks of playing the same loop slightly lower every other time. Pickin' It Up picks up the pace again. The rock organs and the punky style of the song remind me of Elvis Costello's early albums. Island of the Honest Man sounds a lot like Maxïmo Park, probably because of the disco drumming and fast tempo guitar riffs. Middle Of Nowhere is one of the less catchy songs on the album. It gets a bit boring after a while. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with it, but I guess it being the longest song on the album, you start noticing that the same idea doesn't carry for that long. Dirty Mouth introduces some acoustic guitars that are a welcome sound switch at this part of the album. The vocals in this song are great! Soldier In a Box has some sharp and piercing electric guitars that remind me of some Guided by Voices songs, although when the song gets going, it's very different from GBV. The chorus is excellent. Shame On You has a dark melody and kind of hypnotic rhythm that makes me think of another great indie rock band, White Rabbits. The album ends with the title-track Elevator that has some beautiful melodies and airy guitar riffs that ring slightly out of tune almost reminding me of post-rock.

The music video for Goodnight Goodnight is quite a typical mid-00s music video. It features the band on a kind of paper or a sheet that keeps trembling in the wind. Every once in a while, the band keeps zooming with great speed around town wearing T-shirts with their own photos and at other times they just play the song in front of a white background. The lead singer has a fantastic curly hairdo that reminds me of young Robert Plant.

I haven't listened to Hot Hot Heat in a long time, but it actually sounds really good now. For a while this kind of music was very much out of style, but I think it might make its return again after so many years of something else.

Listen to the album on Spotify.