Album Review: Bloc Party - Intimacy

A while back us freelance writers received a memo from a disgruntled senior magazine editor, laying out a new set of style guidelines for writing album reviews. This included a stipulation against five star (10/10) ratings, unless the CD was indeed “the second coming of Jesus”. Well Bloc Party’s third album is actually pretty close to it, and without committing blasphemy, if Our Lord and Saviour came back and started a rock band His album would probably sound something like this.

By Jonno Seidler

The band is so incredibly complicated that decoding all of the lyrical and musical reference points on the record would take me 20 years. So let’s start with what we know. Bloc Party busted out in the early 2000s as the most unique indie band, well, ever, simply because they created songs about alienation and love which were so addictive that they became club staples almost by accident. In response, they took the Tricky avenue and sent out a big ‘fuck you’ to their new converts, aping Radiohead and completely joining another stratosphere with sophomore album, A Weekend In The City. Which brings us to Initmacy.

Like Thom Yorke, frontman Kele Okereke loves to keep his listeners on their toes. Thus Bloc Party announced and released this album in the space of three days. So much for hype. Okereke - black, British and gay - has plenty of material to fuel his beyond-quirky lyrics. Now when he talks about “resting his head on your chest” and all that jazz, it’s got a slightly different tone to it, possibly more vulnerable, but maybe more defiant. It helps that Kele’s band has rediscovered their testicles, especially I-had-a-collapsed-lung drummer Matt Tong, who returns to stunning form beating out rhythmically dexterous and muscular grooves under cascading walls of guitar. And when I say walls, I mean the Great Wall of freaking China. Axeman Russell Lissack may be the most unassuming man in rock music, but he comes impossibly close to sound wizard Tom Morello when making his amp burst into flames of fuzz. Really what propels this album to mythical status is its brilliant contrast of anger and tenderness.

There’s Kid-A electronics, odd time signatures, screaming, serenading and lots of digital splicing. It’s the ultimate 21st century record for those who want their ears stretched. I’ve picked out one of the softer songs which will probably never make it to the other blogs. Any band can play fast, loud and angry. But it takes a special group to craft beauty like “Signs”. You will swear you’re listening to “Everything In Its Right Place”, except that there are pretty little glockenspiels everywhere. This is what happens when synths and romance find each other on an abandoned back-street in South London. You’ve got to marvel at Bloc Party’s ambition; for a band that doesn’t want to rule the world, they do a far better job of it than Coldplay.

You can only purchase Intimacy online for next to nothing. If you feel bad about scamming In Rainbows for free, this is your form of retribution. From Jesus, naturally.

Taken from 1songday.blogspot.com.