Just a year after the release of their second album, A Weekend In The City, the British Indie-Rock band Bloc Party has released their third full-length album, Intimacy. This album, released digitally August 21st on their website, combines electronic beats, pulsating rhythms, and raw lyrics that rival that of The Smiths and The Cure.
The British quartet got their start in late 1999 when lead singer Kele Okereke and guitarist Russell Lissack met each other through mutual friends at the Reading Festival. Bassist/vocalist Gordon Moakes and drummer Matt Tong soon joined, and in 2003 the band sent out a demo under the name Union. After several other name changes, the band settled on Bloc Party in September of 2003.
After releasing demos to the band Franz Ferdinand and Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq, Bloc Party signed to Wichita (and Vice Records for the States) and released their first full-length album Silent Alarm in 2005. In 2007, Bloc Party followed up with A Weekend In The City.
Now with their third album, Intimacy, Bloc Party has combined the experimental sound of A Weekend In The City and the raw lyrics of Silent Alarm and taken it one step further. The band has shown their diversity by experimenting with an electronic sound, layering vocals, and drum beats, and even adding trumpets in the second track, “Mercury.”
At first listen, the album may sound too heavy and chaotic to be Bloc Party, but upon further listening you begin to notice the more lyrical, emotional side of Okereke’s voice and the careful placement of the techno-like beats that truly show how this CD is a combination of the first two previous albums.
The album opens with “Ares,” a heavy guitar driven song with a fitting name (Ares is the Greek god of warfare) as Okereke sings about war and “dancing to the sound of sirens.” Ares then launches right into “Mercury,” continuing with the upbeat electronics but adding trumpets on top of it. The album slows down a bit in the fourth track, “Biko,” as you hear the raw, sentimental side of Okereke’s voice and softer, layered drum beats. The fifth track, “Trojan Horse,” takes the album back to the upbeat sound that remains fairly constant throughout the rest of the album.
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