Intimacy would have been a good name for Bloc Party's previous album, A Weekend in the City, which was so vulnerable and confessional that it often felt like barely edited diary entries set to music. The album's take on 21st century life and love was heavy listening in large part because it felt so personal. Bloc Party's mood is just as dark on Intimacy, which plays a lot like A Weekend in the City's mirror twin: it's a breakup album that gives personal situations a political heft. The similarities aren't really that surprising, considering that Intimacy arrived just a year and a half after A Weekend in the City and also features production work by Jacknife Lee (as well as Silent Alarm producer Paul Epworth). The album begins with two of Bloc Party's angriest, most experimental songs, which revisit the beat-heavy territory of A Weekend in the City's "Prayer" with even more charged results. "Ares" is a modern-day war chant, with seething processed guitar lines fueled by huge pummeling drums, the likes of which haven't been heard since the big beat heyday of the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy. "Mercury" is cleverly astrological, using a straight description of Mercury's retrograde conditions ("This is not the time to start a new love/This is not the time to sign a lease") as a springboard to a self-loathing rant set to wildly spiraling brass and more of those bludgeoning beats. Bloc Party push the envelope hard on both of these tracks, almost to the point of pretension, but not quite; actually, it's a little anticlimactic when they return to more familiar terrain like "Halo," which could fit in easily among Silent Alarm's angsty rockers.
However, the band does find subtle ways to tweak and channel that angst: "Biko" (not the Peter Gabriel song) is dedicated to Kele Okereke's "sweetheart the melancholic," but when he sings that "you've got to toughen up," he sings it to himself as much as his lost love, and as the song closes with a swell of backing vocals, it's clear that he's singing about more than something between two people. The band captures post-breakup obsession masterfully on the frosty yet strangely hopeful "Signs," where the way Okereke sings "I could sleep forever these days/'Cause in my dreams I see you again" makes this kind of brooding almost as romantic as actually being in love. "Zephyrus" balances Intimacy's heartbreak and experimental tendencies into a standout, setting snippets of an argument to strings, choral vocals, and sputtering rhythms. "Ion Square" ends the album on a somewhat uplifting note along the lines of Silent Alarm's "So Here We Are" or A Weekend in the City's "I Still Remember," and as good as it is, it underscores the album's push-pull between familiar sounds and breaking boundaries. At times, Intimacy feels rushed and predictable, and at others, it's almost painfully ambitious. However, at its best, it balances Silent Alarm's focus with A Weekend in the City's expansiveness.
I've never really liked Bloc Party. When the media were creaming their pants at the release of Silent Alarm I sat listening and hearing nothing new, they had borrowed most of their sound from 80's Post-Punk bands and some DC Hardcore bands and watered it down. Kele's vocals left me cold as well. Apart from [...]
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You don't need to be a genius to know that I love Bloc Party with a passion. They're releasing brand new single Talons in about two weeks time, and frankly, it's amazing. If you haven't heard it yet, catch the video below. I particularly love the moment at about 2:55… the video matches the song perfectly, [...]
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20088/10So, you know that band Bloc Party? Yeah, they're back.Many fans, myself included, were hesitant upon hearing the Mercury single, which further showcased Kele Okereke's electronic fetish. I mean, yeah, I'm into electronica as much as the next guy, but Bloc Party was a rock band when I fell in love with them. I don't know if I would have found this new sound as interesting as the quirky e...
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2008Vice RecordsBuy (Amazon.com)8/10So, you know that band Bloc Party? Yeah, they're back.Many fans, myself included, were hesitant upon hearing the Mercury single, which further showcased Kele Okereke's electronic fetish. I mean, yeah, I'm into electronica as much as the next guy, but Bloc Party was a rock band when I fell in love with them. I don't know if I would have found this new sound as...
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Tracklist1. Ares (3:29)2. Mercury (3:53)3. Halo (3:36)4. Biko (5:01)5. Trojan Horse (3:32)6. Signs (4:40)7. One Month Off (3:38)8. Zephyrus (4:34)9. Better Than Heaven (4:21)10. Ion Square (6:33)The first 7 something minutes of Intimacy are so fierce and ear-piercing that you begin to wonder if Bloc Party has lured us into something we weren't prepared for with the title Intimacy. I've one of ...
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The video for the new single 'Talons' from the band's new album 'Intimacy'. The single will be on the CD release in October. ..ONE OF MY TRUSTED MMN BLOGS CAME UP WITH THIS FIRST;http://mog.com/blog_post/content/207THEY ARE FINDING THE NEW STUFF FAST, BUT IT'S NOT THE SAME LEAVING A COMMENT ON A BLOG AS IT IS WITH SOMEONE'S MOG...
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--- - |- "We'd love it if more festivals were like this - all small and lively" commented Matt Tong of Bloc Party mid Saturday afternoon before their sensational headlining set at Hydro Connect 2008. It had been threatening to rain all afternoon, but thankfully it held off long enough for us to have a quick chat with [...] ~~- Bloc Party
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--- - |- I saw Bloc Party live at the O2 Arena in February. It wasn't really their gig - in fact I'd mostly gone to see Manic Street Preachers, who had won NME's Godlike Geniuses award and were being supported by Kele Okereke's men, among others. Despite their third billing at the gig, Bloc Party rose to the occasion and put on a superb performance which helped really kick things off after a d...
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It doesn't seem so long ago since Bloc Party released A Weekend In The City, but there is a new record already out. It's only a single, so don't get too excited, but that usually means more is coming.So what do you think of it? It's called Flux, and personally, I'm loving it. It's punchy as all hell and almost sent my girlfriend into an epileptic fit, so that can't be bad. Check it, and comment.
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2008Vice RecordsBuy (Amazon.com)8/10So, you know that band Bloc Party? Yeah, they're back.Many fans, myself included, were hesitant upon hearing the Mercury single, which further showcased Kele Okereke's electronic fetish. I mean, yeah, I'm into electronica as much as the next guy, but Bloc Party was a rock band when I fell in love with them. I don't know if I would have found this new sound as...
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The video for the new single 'Talons' from the band's new album 'Intimacy'. The single will be on the CD release in October. ..ONE OF MY TRUSTED MMN BLOGS CAME UP WITH THIS FIRST;http://mog.com/blog_post/content/207THEY ARE FINDING THE NEW STUFF FAST, BUT IT'S NOT THE SAME LEAVING A COMMENT ON A BLOG AS IT IS WITH SOMEONE'S MOG...
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Bloc Party didn't exactly "Wow!":http://mog.com/Charley_Rogulewski/blog/171926 with the release of their first single off Intimacy, the band's follow-up to 2007's A Weekend In The City, "due later this week.":http://mog.com/MrFrost/blog/182345 Do they do a better job with the second single, "Trojan Horse" off Intimacy? You tell me. "Trojan Horse""Mercury"
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Cant see the new video for the third single from 'Intimacy' out on the 26th of January on Wichita Recordings posted on here..here y'ar... mwah
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--- - |- I mentioned yesterday that Bloc Party was going to release "Talons" on the Zane Lowe's Radio One show last nite. The band did not waited long and decided to release the video for the new single today. "Talons" will be on the Intimacy CD release in October. - Bloc Party
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I was caught off guard when Bloc Party announced that they would release a digital-only album, with just three days notice. I had been ignoring them for too long. Silent Alarm will always be in rotation, but A Weekend in the City was hit and miss for me. I'd heard a few new things from them; "Flux", which I loved instantly, showed a promising new direction for them, and "Mercury", a jittery...
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Heard this the other day...like it...
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As promised, below's the interview I did with the infamous drummer.Four kids from the blockWe get intimate with one of the members of Bloc Party, drummer Matthew Tong on their latest album, Intimacy, being half-Malaysian and revealing three secrets we don't know about himIt's afternoon back in London, and I'm on the phone with Matthew Tong, the drummer for British indie-rocker Bloc Party. I n...
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Bloc Party fans all over waited patiently for October 27th. This marked the day that the final and full version of their third album "Intimacy" hit shops and arrived in the mail for everyone who ordered the digital version package. Besides a simple and slightly racy cover art, owners of the album get three new tracks and one track that has been parked in EP form since the summer....
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Yesterday Bloc Party announced that you'd have to wait just three days to hear their forthcoming third album. If that is too long for you, and you are on the internet so it's fair to assume it is, you can hear a new single right now. As for sounds: The band promised that the new album would recall "fan favourites" like "Helicopter," "Banquet," and "So Here We Are," although on first pass "Troja...
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Bloc Party's "Intimacy" is out now. I'm very happy they managed to not have this one leak. I like being surprised by an album's release. They were pretty tight lipped about this one! I've mentioned them in the blog a few times recently (*Cough*Flosstradamus Mercury Remix )... but I thought I'd post some oldies to get you ramped up for the new album! NOTE: I will be back to put in 'back...
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Everyone (well, almost) has no idea who this mystery dude, MMMatthias really is, but what isn't still up in the air is how good he is at treatments and remixes. This German-born remixer/producer/DJ's latest offering is a five-minute pulsing remix of Bloc Party 's "Signs", which for the first few minutes doesn't even seem like it could have possibly been a Bloc Party song originally. This...
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Hey there, I know my posts haven't been much indulgent lately (are they?). Anyways, if you haven't heard, Bloc Party's will physically release their album, Intimacy, and to quench your thirst I have a few bonus tracks which started to pop up around the internet last week. Billboard got in on the news. here's what they said: Bloc Party is expanding its third album, "Intimacy," for CD release o...
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The cover image Kele's crew affixed to the rush-released version of Intimacy stood in stark contrast to the album's title. At the time I thought maybe the band was dealing in irony. Now I'm thinking they are just having fun with the internet news cycle some more . So say hello to the new look of Intimacy , which accompanies the album's physical format, out in a month (10/27 in the UK via Witchi...
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Bloc Party's new single 'Talons', out October 20 via Wichita, promises to be something of a collector's item - it'll contain the last ever Phones (AKA producer Paul Epworth) remix
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Ares |
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| 2 Mercury |
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| 3 Halo |
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| 4 Biko |
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| 5 Trojan Horse |
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| 6 Signs |
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| 7 One Month Off |
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| 8 Zephyrus |
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| 9 Talons |
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| 10 Better Than Heaven |
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| 11 Ion Square |
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| 12 Letter to My Son [#][*] |
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| 13 Your Visits Are Getting Shorter [#][*] |
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| 14 Flux |
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| 15 [CD-Rom Track] |
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Click to purchase…
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 "Intimacy")
