Bloc Party Intimacy Rar

Bloc Party's third LP saw the band depart from their usual indie, post-punk inspired sound. Instead diving head-first in the world of electronic and dance music. Lyrically, as the title would. Intimacy Bloc Party to stream in hi-fi, or to download in True CD Quality on Qobuz.com.

Pumping out a new album barely 18 months since the, to these ears at least, slight wrong-turn of A Weekend In The City (DiS's Mike Diver awarded the album a perhaps overly enthusiastic 9/10), suggests one of two things about Bloc Party's third LP, Intimacy: either it's warmed-up leftovers, a la Radiohead's Amnesiac (I don't care what the fanboys say, just listen to the two versions of ‘Morning Bell' and tell me the latter isn't a hideous mistake that should have been left unheard), or the London band is trying to atone for relative errors that have damaged their egos, if not quite their fanbase.

I'll mention Radiohead again, as Kele Okereke and company have sprung this album on us with a lack of preparation time that makes the epochal release strategy of In Rainbows look like Chinese Democracy's marketing campaign. Two days' notice, and bam. Come October there'll be a full, physical release, with more tracks and full artwork, but for now the ten tracks available for download via Bloc Party's official website will suffice.

So let's take the second scenario regarding Intimacy's accelerated gestation. A Weekend In The City attempted to experiment by drafting a couple of minutes of cut-up microhouse, radionoise, or dubstep onto otherwise standard Bloc Party songs, and then attempted to mature by throwing all the ballads at the second half of the record and stripping them of the thrilling juxtapositional rhythmic surge that made ‘So Here We Are' and ‘This Modern Love' sound like the best things ever at the start of 2005, in the process making them sound closer to Coldplay than anything from debut album Silent Alarm. Intimacy has to repair both those errors.

And it starts promisingly. ‘Ares' mashes up ‘Setting Sun' by The Chemical Brothers with guitars that sound like Public Enemy's most startling sirens, and a melodic framework ripped-off from a schoolyard 'Thumb-War' _chant. The cyclonal drum pattern that dominates the song is going on 40 years old now, but there's always scope for going back to The Beatles if what's dredged up still sounds radical, alive, _alarming.

‘Mercury' may have a nonsensical chorus and some kind of freaky anti-melody, but the arrangement, though messy, points at an attempt to do something far beyond the likes of, say, Editors' comprehension. It reminds me of parts of Kid A (there's that band again), though it doesn't sound much like that record; there's an ambition and intent there, a desire to bring something original and strange to a wider audience that is admirable even if slightly wrongheaded in execution. There are more ways to be experimental as an ‘indie band' than merely busting out the computer and the crazy rhythms.

Lyrically there are missteps, and the most vocal critics of Weekend… will be presented with opportunities to pick holes once more: the farcical line about taking a watch off before making love that opens ‘Trojan Horse' is enough to make anyone squirm, and the cod-scientific / profound song titles belie the otherwise pretty base lyrical topics on offer, namely getting wasted, falling in love, and having sex. But, more positively, Okereke is writing at a level that qualifies as ‘universal' throughout Intimacy – there's no reference, oblique or otherwise, to eating foie gras, one of a smattering of seemingly widely acknowledged lyrical faux pas on the band's previous album.

‘Halo' successfully rocks like ‘Banquet' and ‘Helicopter' used to – there is much here to please Silent Alarm purists – and ‘Signs' and ‘Biko' achieve the album's titular mood through genuine sonic delicacy, even if the band can't resist cranking out the Aphex Twin-inspired beats for the latter's second half. ‘Zepherus' does something genuinely beautiful with choirs, synths and beats (it's as if Baz Luhrmann requested a re-write of _Weekend…'s ‘Song For Clay' – Ed), and though the lyrics aren't above criticism, the juxtapositions of slashing guitars and scrambling electronics on ‘Trojan Horse'_ work much better than anything on Weekend.. managed.

Also, thankfully, Okereke seems to have shied away from any desire or prompting to centre-stage his vocals through close-mic'ing and über-compressing them until they swallow the whole mix. When Bloc Party toured their last album it became quickly apparent that their frontman wasn't up to the vocal push in a live environment. But I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that people don't listen to a Bloc Party record for the vocals in the way they might listen to, say, Leona Lewis.

Perhaps penultimate track ‘Better Than Heaven' encapsulates what Bloc Party have been attempting to do for their last two records, namely aligning all their different directional desires: to swoon, to rock, and to experiment all at once. Intimacy gets pretty close to achieving that ultimate goal, and while there's nothing (yet) as potent as ‘So Here We Are' or ‘Positive Tension' seemed at the beginning of this band's career, there's also nothing as miscalculated as Weekend…'s anti-climax closer, ‘SRXT''.

Intimacy is not quite the radical statement its makers might think it is (I'm not sure what could be given the group's evident ambitions), but it's definitely a little bit of invigorating redemption at a time when doubts were beginning to cloud what was, initially, a flawless reputation.

Bloc Party Intimacy Rarely

• Nick Southall's Score

Album + Remix

Relationships

CritiqueBrainz Reviews

Most Recent

Intimacy Remixed, a collection of songs which initially appeared on Bloc Party's patchy third album, is unprecedented in its field.

Tough as it may be for the purists to comprehend, this record is better than the original.

Bloc Party's third LP saw the band depart from their usual indie, post-punk inspired sound. Instead diving head-first in the world of electronic and dance music. Lyrically, as the title would. Intimacy Bloc Party to stream in hi-fi, or to download in True CD Quality on Qobuz.com.

Pumping out a new album barely 18 months since the, to these ears at least, slight wrong-turn of A Weekend In The City (DiS's Mike Diver awarded the album a perhaps overly enthusiastic 9/10), suggests one of two things about Bloc Party's third LP, Intimacy: either it's warmed-up leftovers, a la Radiohead's Amnesiac (I don't care what the fanboys say, just listen to the two versions of ‘Morning Bell' and tell me the latter isn't a hideous mistake that should have been left unheard), or the London band is trying to atone for relative errors that have damaged their egos, if not quite their fanbase.

I'll mention Radiohead again, as Kele Okereke and company have sprung this album on us with a lack of preparation time that makes the epochal release strategy of In Rainbows look like Chinese Democracy's marketing campaign. Two days' notice, and bam. Come October there'll be a full, physical release, with more tracks and full artwork, but for now the ten tracks available for download via Bloc Party's official website will suffice.

So let's take the second scenario regarding Intimacy's accelerated gestation. A Weekend In The City attempted to experiment by drafting a couple of minutes of cut-up microhouse, radionoise, or dubstep onto otherwise standard Bloc Party songs, and then attempted to mature by throwing all the ballads at the second half of the record and stripping them of the thrilling juxtapositional rhythmic surge that made ‘So Here We Are' and ‘This Modern Love' sound like the best things ever at the start of 2005, in the process making them sound closer to Coldplay than anything from debut album Silent Alarm. Intimacy has to repair both those errors.

And it starts promisingly. ‘Ares' mashes up ‘Setting Sun' by The Chemical Brothers with guitars that sound like Public Enemy's most startling sirens, and a melodic framework ripped-off from a schoolyard 'Thumb-War' _chant. The cyclonal drum pattern that dominates the song is going on 40 years old now, but there's always scope for going back to The Beatles if what's dredged up still sounds radical, alive, _alarming.

‘Mercury' may have a nonsensical chorus and some kind of freaky anti-melody, but the arrangement, though messy, points at an attempt to do something far beyond the likes of, say, Editors' comprehension. It reminds me of parts of Kid A (there's that band again), though it doesn't sound much like that record; there's an ambition and intent there, a desire to bring something original and strange to a wider audience that is admirable even if slightly wrongheaded in execution. There are more ways to be experimental as an ‘indie band' than merely busting out the computer and the crazy rhythms.

Lyrically there are missteps, and the most vocal critics of Weekend… will be presented with opportunities to pick holes once more: the farcical line about taking a watch off before making love that opens ‘Trojan Horse' is enough to make anyone squirm, and the cod-scientific / profound song titles belie the otherwise pretty base lyrical topics on offer, namely getting wasted, falling in love, and having sex. But, more positively, Okereke is writing at a level that qualifies as ‘universal' throughout Intimacy – there's no reference, oblique or otherwise, to eating foie gras, one of a smattering of seemingly widely acknowledged lyrical faux pas on the band's previous album.

‘Halo' successfully rocks like ‘Banquet' and ‘Helicopter' used to – there is much here to please Silent Alarm purists – and ‘Signs' and ‘Biko' achieve the album's titular mood through genuine sonic delicacy, even if the band can't resist cranking out the Aphex Twin-inspired beats for the latter's second half. ‘Zepherus' does something genuinely beautiful with choirs, synths and beats (it's as if Baz Luhrmann requested a re-write of _Weekend…'s ‘Song For Clay' – Ed), and though the lyrics aren't above criticism, the juxtapositions of slashing guitars and scrambling electronics on ‘Trojan Horse'_ work much better than anything on Weekend.. managed.

Also, thankfully, Okereke seems to have shied away from any desire or prompting to centre-stage his vocals through close-mic'ing and über-compressing them until they swallow the whole mix. When Bloc Party toured their last album it became quickly apparent that their frontman wasn't up to the vocal push in a live environment. But I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that people don't listen to a Bloc Party record for the vocals in the way they might listen to, say, Leona Lewis.

Perhaps penultimate track ‘Better Than Heaven' encapsulates what Bloc Party have been attempting to do for their last two records, namely aligning all their different directional desires: to swoon, to rock, and to experiment all at once. Intimacy gets pretty close to achieving that ultimate goal, and while there's nothing (yet) as potent as ‘So Here We Are' or ‘Positive Tension' seemed at the beginning of this band's career, there's also nothing as miscalculated as Weekend…'s anti-climax closer, ‘SRXT''.

Intimacy is not quite the radical statement its makers might think it is (I'm not sure what could be given the group's evident ambitions), but it's definitely a little bit of invigorating redemption at a time when doubts were beginning to cloud what was, initially, a flawless reputation.

Bloc Party Intimacy Rarely

• Nick Southall's Score

Album + Remix

Relationships

CritiqueBrainz Reviews

Most Recent

Intimacy Remixed, a collection of songs which initially appeared on Bloc Party's patchy third album, is unprecedented in its field.

Tough as it may be for the purists to comprehend, this record is better than the original.

Villians remix of Ares is a great start to proceedings. The sub-Chemical Bothers clatter of the initial recording being overhauled like an even more robust Justice.

Meanwhile, go-to ghetto bass remixer, Herve, contributes a dark and twitchy 4/4 battering of big single Mercury and We Have Band rip the punky guitars from Halo and prefer to up the pulsing bass and add computer game synth noises.

Bloc Party Intimacy Raritan

Although some artists themselves can be precious when their work is tampered with, most progressive musicians realise reworking material can be a useful and occasionally necessary way of making songs better or just relevant to a new audience.

This is surely why Bloc Party have allowed the likes of drum 'n' bass hero John B and venerated US house veteran Armand Van Helden free rein here.

John B cuts his trance 'n' bass moves sweetly over Trojan Horse, which merely bores in its original incarnation, but here soars before, during and after a lengthy euphoric breakdown.

Armand, who many would argue made the first ever essential remix with his take on CJ Bolland's Sugar Is Sweeter, is content to toughen up Signs into something much more dynamic than the original. It won't escape any listeners that AVH's version is a damn sight better to dance to.

Everything else on Intimacy Remixed is worth checking out, particularly Banjo Or Freakout's Ion Square, which is less a remix than a beautiful, Spacemen 3-style hymnal cover version. It's another reason why London-based Italian Alessio Andalusia (aka BoF) is one of 2009's best ones to watch.

Bloc Party Intimacy Remixed

Since the rock and dance boundaries truly began to disintegrate in the 1990s remixing has been a permanent fixture of modern music and has here reached the zenith of its validity. Bloc Party and others interested in the now and next of songwriting are advised to listen carefully.