Welcome to the Pitchforkast. Here, your friendly Pitchforkast team (YFPT) will attempt to predict the Pitchfork rating for albums that have not yet appeared on that Web site. Note: Ratings estimates are arrived at through expert guesswork.

TODAY: Hot Chip, One Life Stand—-leaked January 2010; out Feb. 9

YFPT has never liked Hot Chip. I mean, we got over the Depeche Mode thing kind of fast, and we never really understood why anyone would want to resurrect it—at least insofar as pure sonic appeal is concerned. As a formula for making money post-electroclash, however, we kind of get it.

But Pitchfork didn’t. Not with 2008’s Made in the Dark: Despite Zach Baron’s post on the Village Voice’s music blog, which found that its “purview is as commercially viable as pretty [much] any other, give or take a U2 or Taylor Swift,” the go-to source for the moderately discriminating music fan failed to see the commercial potential of that Hot Chip album. “Hot Chip have a big record in them and this isn’t it,” wrote reviewer Mark Pytlik. The album would debut at No. 2 (just below Hannah Montana) on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Chart. And The Warning? The 2006 sophomore release that earned the band an 8.1 rating, despite the totally mediocre review penned by Sean Fennessey? It didn’t crack the top 200.

Which is to say that YFPT believes that Pitchfork has a bad Hot Chip formula.

So. Based on the total lack of musical advancement (read: desire for another payday) on display throughout the band’s latest, One Life Stand, and the fact that Pitchfork hasn’t yet seemed able to tune its ear with that of the purchasing public (at least when it comes to Hot Chip), YFPT has determined that Hot Chip’s latest will earn a…

6.5. And sell like crazy.