Review

The one major criticism Bloc Party fans had of A Weekend In The City was that, for the most part, you couldn’t dance to it. Sure, it had some great songs, but the album pushed the quartet’s excellent rhythm section into the background, ultimately drowning in its own cloying guitars. Poppy non-album single ‘Flux’ promised a return to the floor, but it was a red herring. What in fact we have here is Bloc Party’s Kid A; the Londoners have deconstructed their own sound, filtering it through an electronic prism in stark, often startling new ways.

‘Ares’ bursts from the speakers, sounding for all the world like the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Setting Sun’ hijacked by a strident Kele Okereke vocal. Divisive single ‘Mercury’ follows, but sandwiched between the opener’s big beat revisionism and ‘Halo’s punky rush, it reveals itself as the fractured, thrilling beast it always was. ‘Biko’ and ‘Zephyrus’ marry skittering beats to yearning vocals, ‘Signs’ is wonderfully affecting minimalist electronica, but best of all is closer ‘Ion Square’, which builds from hissing ambience and rapid piano stabs to an ecstatic, cascading climax. Intimacy is a magnificent record, but perfectly named; this is immersive, captivating music, perfectly suited to solo headphone listening rather than communal hedonism, and as such it will split opinion right down the middle. The old Bloc Party is dead: it’s time to choose which side you’re on. Lee Gorman

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DOWNLOAD: ‘ION SQUARE’, ‘ZEPHYRUS’, ‘SIGNS’.
FOR FANS OF: THE NOTWIST, I WAS A CUB SCOUT, KID A.

Posted on: 27th January 2010

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