Well it was a party and we were all invited. The last few months have had reports from Bloc party that they were mulling over their third album and that they were even considering dumping the work they had already done and starting anew.
What a surprise (and publicity stunt) then to rush release their third album "Intimacy" on-line. After a sudden announcement all fans had to do was wait a paltry two days for the chance to download the album from their official site with the promise of a physical CD release in October which would be beefed up with extra tracks to not only ensnare the Internet phobic as well as the completists.
Following in the footsteps or caught in the shadow of a band like Radiohead, I find this way of acquiring music a bit disorientating. I guess I'm a traditionalist. Give me the tactility of a CD and sleeve notes to peruse and obsess over. Give me an experience. It's this reason alone that it's taken me a while to give the album the attention it deserves. Using the two producers that they employed for their debut and sophomore albums (Paul Epworth from "Silent Alarm" and Jacknife Lee from "A Weekend in the City") the band are trying to achieve a lot with this record. Possibly too much. Bloc Party should be applauded for their attempts to expand their core sound. They moved from the spiky guitar action of their first album, to the more expansive and measured tones of their second and finally indulging their dance and hip hop(ish) influences on singles,"Flux" and "Mercury". The latter is included here and for those who could not warm to it divorced from a record might be surprised to learn how well it fits into this scatter shot piece of work.
I say "scatter shot" not in a bad way. It's just all the sides of this band try to merge here (no freeways in sight though, a little Bloc humour for the faithful there) and it's a hard thing to reconcile but they just about pull it off. We have the dance acolytes in "Ares" and the aforementioned "Mercury", we have the assured balladeers in "Signs" and "Ion Square" and we have the Bloc of old in "Halo" but the onslaught of guitars have been punched up with hints of electronica, (see "One Month Off"). It makes for a heavy going but enjoyable album. Still the old niggles are there. As a band they are easy to respect and in a particular mood they soar but in spite of the title, there's a distance to the band, the iciness of the Hitchcockian blonde.
That's not to say there's no humanity, in fact this record aches with the contradictions of human nature, it's just there is no humour in this world. The Bloc is catered for but not the Party. It does however seriously rock in places and is a distillation of this band in this moment in time. Musically it's not the quantum leap we were hoping for. Lyrically Kele Okereke might still labour some of his points and rape some metaphors but he does have an ability to articulate a loneliness at the heart of contemporary urban life that I appreciate.
It's distribution is fascinating though. The second single from "Intimacy" , the muscular (and no I'm not talking about Shirtless Kele in the video) rocker Talons wasn't even featured on the download version of the album and that shows a band still working, releasing material as they are excited about it. This may lead to missteps as some reflection on work is required for quality control but I love the immediacy of the release. In a world where we wait on bands to finish touring before finally releasing tepid versions of underwritten songs, I like this attitude of "Here's something we just made, Check it out!" that is coursing through the band right now. More of that excitement please. It's infectious.
"Intimacy" hits stores on October 27th.
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