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Bloc Party: A Weekend In The City
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April 3, 2007 - Thai "Indie" Dao (Contributer)
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Bloc Party: A Weekend In The City |
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MBloc Party’s 2005 debut full-length album, Silent Alarm was like a frantic breath of fresh air. It was dance-pop-rock that was pulsating, emotional, and had a sense of urgency to it. It was a young British band that felt like it needed to get its message out. A Weekend In The City starts off with that same fervor, the same need to be heard, and this time the message is about his home. A city of lights, glamour, but filled with shallowness, ugliness, and uniformity. Singer Kele Okereke is not shy about how disenchanted he is with society. In the opener “Song For Clay (Disappear Here)” he proclaims “East London is a Vampire, it sucks the joy right out of me. How we longed for corruption in these golden years,” and it pretty much sets the tone for content of the rest of the album.
The album hits its peak with the fourth song, “The Prayer”, which begins with a very TV On The Radio-like chant, about a man asking God to make him be the man of the hour at the nightclub, but then asks, almost with guilt “Is it wrong to want rewarding?” It’s fun, depressing, deep, and shallow all at the same time, and quite possibly eclipses anything they recorded in their previous albums and EPs.
From that point, however, the album starts to lose its steam. The last half of the album sticks to a predictable formula of “start slow, build up, finish grand” as if they’ve been listening to a lot of Coldplay. There are repeated attempts at a heart-felt anthem but with a misstep in the execution. For example, “Where Is Home” has an excellent chorus, but terrible verses. It seems that in trying to put a little bit of U2 in their sound, the sense of urgency that made Silent Alarm so exciting seems to be lost here. And that’s where the problem lies with this album. It’s ambitious, but as a whole, it’s uninspiring. It’s almost like the empty souls they are singing about have caused them to lose a little bit of life in their own. Although there is a glimmer is excellence nestled in Side-B of Weekend (remember that? When there was a Side-A and Side-B?) in the lost-love song, “I Still Remember”.
A Weekend In The City shows a band maturing, not wanting to continue to be constricted in the frivolousness of this post-indie-punk (which oddly enough means the same as dance-pop-rock, doesn’t it?). I applaud them not resting on their laurels and do recommend giving this album a good listen. There are moments of glory here and certainly signs of growth. Let’s just hope they keep growing.
Album highlights: “The Prayer”, “Song for Clay (Disappear Here)”, “I Still Remember”
 6/10
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Briefly, how we rate the music we hear...
| 10 |
_Perfect
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| 9 |
_Excellent
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| 8 |
_Great
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| 7 |
_Very Good
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| 6 |
_Good
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| 5 |
_Not Bad
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| 4 |
_Not Good
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| 3 |
_Pretty Bad
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| 2 |
_Really Bad
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| 1 |
_Suck Ass
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| 0 |
_Feces
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