Album Review - Bloc Party

Bloc Party
Intimacy

Coming off of the back of the most successful year of the bands career that ended with the release of one of the year’s biggest indie dance tracks and the bands biggest UK tour to date, Bloc Party entered into 2008 as one of the biggest rising bands in the world – their Last.FM stats tell the true story; you don’t achieve over 36 million plays just by a stroke of luck.If this album does not surpass the feats of the previous two and scale to the top spot in the charts, then I will give up my attempts to become an established music journalist here and now.

‘Intimacy’ is a hugely experimental third release for the London based foursome who produced the performances of their lives at Reading and Leeds, minus Gordon.Prior to this performance, the album was released unto the world via their official website as a download for the mere price of £5, and £10 if you wished to pre order the physical release CD scheduled for October 24th, on top of the download. You’d think that it be a coincidence the album was released prior to their Reading and Leeds performances, and for that you may now accept the award for ‘The Most Gullible Individual in World History’.

Also described by Kele as ‘The Break-Up Album’ of their releases so far, he said that he wrote many of the songs about a bad break-up he had at the end of last year. Some of the best indie music has been written about break-ups in recent years – Arctics’ 505, Killers Mr. Brightside, Hard-Fi Better Do Better, I could go on – but the point is, Kele’s trying to move the band in a seriously positive direction. Yes, music has been moving towards a more dance driven state for a few years now, but the fact that Kele also supplied vocals for The Chemical Brothers Believe would explain he’d have to have some passion for dance music even before he’d begun to write ‘A Weekend in the City’, or maybe that’s just a coincidence as well.

“Now let’s get this party started”, is what should have been the first words ushered by Kele on the opening track Ares, however they were in fact “War, war, war ,war”, exactly the same words being subconsciously screamed by the new hate fad surrounding the band post-Mercury. However, what is certain about this new experimental sound, is that it’s truly explosive, endlessly dynamic and ultimately, fucking brilliant.
Next up is new single Mercury whose characteristic looping introduction is what all the fuss is about. Kele has said that this new release isn’t meant to be listened to sitting down and immersed in, but to be danced to. So with that spirit in mind, I’ve cracked a few glow sticks and am sitting in the dark with my 150mW green laser pumping sonic juice around my bedroom; now things are starting to really make sense. Yes ok, Nu Rave is deader than most of Michael Barrymore’s guests but if I’m to really experience this first hand, then it has to be done.

Moving deeper into the LP, there is a thunderous drive in the bass-line and riffs of Halo, that’s easily the most experimental track on the release, there’s a sister track to Song for Clay within Biko and attempts as recreating the grimy rock of ‘Silent Alarm’ with One Month Off. However, the real power of this album is locked inside eighth track Zephyrus; as the Greek god of the west wind you expect it to be a mellow track, however it doesn’t live up to the idea of being gentle, on the contrary it mimics the god’s greed and lust. “So let's take this from the start, you'll be me and I'll be you”, think of The Prayer being turned up to the max, but spliced with the passion and core of Like Eating Glass and you’re about a 1/3 of the way there. I went through a break up last year as well so I can sympathise with how Kele felt when he wrote this song. Along with Positive Tension from the debut, I can tell this track will become one of my favourite Bloc Party songs.

The only thing that is starting to worry me is that even after the third album release, they still haven’t been able to compose a band defining, set closing monster track that will cement them as one of the best live bands in the country. The Arctics’ managed this at the first (A Certain Romance) and second (If You Were There, Beware) attempts. Many would suggest the soulful entity of This Modern Love would suffice, yet songs of that nature are wrote and engineered as set intervals, that break up the performance.

Bloc Party have truly jumped into the big league and are ready to become the band they always promised to be. Come 2010 and album number four should be a decade defining masterpiece, touching the Amazon rain forest of course though.

8/10