Hot Chip

“WHY MAKE SENSE?”

Domino Records

Hot Chip has a discreet but unmistakable contrarian streak. An English band formed in 2000 by its lead singer and keyboardist, Alexis Taylor, and its main composer, Joe Goddard, Hot Chip is grounded in dance music but constructs pop songs, not open-ended grooves. And its club beats carry more introspection and insecurity than escapism or simple hedonism.

On its sixth studio album, “Why Make Sense?” Hot Chip defies the programmed, gleaming, pumped-up artificiality of current dance music by featuring hand-played keyboards, guitars and drums from its touring musicians.

Hot Chip has always glanced back knowingly at 1990s and 1980s dance music; now, it gets even more retro, stretching the timeline back to the 1970s. “Started Right” has terse clavinet licks and stop-start drums that invoke Stevie Wonder, while the staccato keyboard chords and falsetto vocals of “Love Is the Future” glance toward Prince’s Minneapolis funk. Disco-era string arrangements peek out in more than one song.

Despite all the allusions, the songs aren’t trapped in revivalism. Part of Hot Chip’s charm has been its combination of intelligence and ingenuity with a self-conscious reserve.

Hot Chip only reveals how much restraint it’s exercising when the album reaches its last (and title) track, “Why Make Sense?” The drums take on a hard-rock wallop; synthesizers start a nervous, nonstop chirruping, Taylor’s solo vocal grows into a men’s chorus and the end is a screech of feedback. The lyrics ponder whether maturity brings resolve or inevitable decline, but the music promises not to mellow too much.

ON TOUR: May 26 — Roseland Theater, Portland; www.cascadetickets.com.

— Jon Pareles,

New York Times