Stream: Hot Hot Heat, ‘Kid Who Stays in the Picture’

Kevin Bronson on April 5th, 2016

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Has it really been almost 14 years since we stood in a line around the block at the club formerly known as Spaceland to see Hot Hot Heat? “Make Up the Breakdown” and its single “Bandages” were all the rage then, their electric post-punk inspiring spastic dance moves we never knew we had. But enough of that. The past 10 years have seen the Canadian rockers segue from two radio-friendly albums (2005 and ’07) to an experimental sound (their 2010 album for Dangerbird) to a period of protracted silence, during which we kept hearing a new Hot Hot Heat album was nearly-almost-approaching-well-nigh-bordering-on finished. And now it actually is. “Hot Hot Heat” (due June 24), their fifth album, will be the swan song for the band, they announced today. Written between 2011 and ’14, the album was co-produced by Ryan Dahle (Limblifter), who also worked on 2010’s “Future Breeds.” The first single “Kid Who Stays in the Picture” has an “Elevator”-era infectiousness, and frontman Steve Bays explains it is about a childhood friend who lost his mojo as he grew older. Bays told Noisey, where the song premiered: “He inadvertently taught me the importance of fighting to stay young at heart and holding onto your innocence for as long as you can, because once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

||| Stream: “Kid Who Stays in the Picture”