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For the follow-up to their highly caffeinated second album, 2002's Make Up the Breakdown, Canada's ranking dance punks Hot Hot Heat decided to spare fans a change of pace.
"We weren't finished with the direction we went in on [Breakdown]," says singer Steve Bays of Elevator, due out April 5th. "We wanted to make an unapologetic, bold pop record."
Elevator channels meaty backbeats (the arch, infectious "You Owe Me and IOU"), mod guitars ("Running Out of Time," which sounds like the Strokes covering early Elvis Costello) and Bays' wordy, nerdy yelp (the agitated, chorus-driven first single, "Goodnight Goodnight") into a hooky, grooves-first album.
"A lot of nights, we'd get a bunch of wine and stay up till six in the morning experimenting with new ideas," Bays says of the recording sessions, which took place during six weeks in Los Angeles last fall. The band members worked more sharp edges and wandering melodies into their sound than on Breakdown, but they always kept the rhythm section at the forefront.
"Everyone in the band has been a drummer at some point," Bays says. "Lyrically, I think like a drummer. Every single instrument has to be used as a hook."