Bloc Party
Intimacy

Campus Correspondent Review By Alyssa Vincent,
North Central College

Let’s get one thing straight—Bloc Party’s idea of intimacy does not involve candlelight dinners and orchestral music. On their third full-length release, these British boys experiment with an entirely new sound. While still relying on lyrics that tug at heartstrings, they’ve ditched their traditional pop/rock sound and traded in a few of their guitars for synthesizers and distortion. It’s a gutsy move and one that doesn’t pay off as well as they might have expected it to.

The first single off the album (“Mercury”) is almost assaulting by being so repetitive. The only thing that saves it from being entirely annoying is Kele Okereke’s voice—it is a great and unique one to listen to. However, even his crooning can’t make incessant refrains of “mercury’s in retrograde” enjoyable in the long run. Unfortunately, the frantic electronic pace of “Mercury” is a fair indicator of what to expect for the rest of the album, as far as the music is concerned.

Thankfully, they do provide slightly more interesting and insightful lyrics on other songs. While “Ion Square” is still difficult to listen to musically, Okereke salvages it by including lines from an especially beautiful E.E. Cummings poem. It’s clear that Intimacy is their attempt to stray away from their Brit-rock roots, while still including extraordinarily personal lyrics. Their effort to showcase a certain range is admirable; the combination of poetic lyrics and frenetic techno beats just doesn’t work for the band. This may not be a sophomore slump, but it’s certainly not a third-year triumph.