Bloc Party - Weekend in the City
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Bloc PartyEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-02-06
Music Label: Vice Records
Soundtracks:
- Song For Clay (Disappear Here)
- Hunting For Witches
- Waiting For The 7:18
- Prayer, The
- Uniform
- On
- Where Is Home?
- Kreuzberg
- I Still Remember
- Sunday
- SRXT
Free Music Notes for Weekend in the City
Free Music Review: Atmospheric...the druggy escapism of A Weekend In The City
Hit: 5 Stars
Now, I loved Silent Alarm as much as anybody else. Bloc Party became one of my very favorite new bands after listening to that album. The sparse, spiky guitars, persistent drumming, and melodic vocals made for a brilliant album that hearkened back to the punk and post-punk movements of the 70s and 80s. A Weekend In The City, Bloc Party's follow-up, is a very different animal altogether. The guitar sound is roughly the same, but the vocals have a softer, almost blurry quality to them, the drums might as well have been drum machines (but they are still amazing), and the song content is darker and more melancholy. If Silent Alarm was the Saturday night out on the city, A Weekend In The City is the hang over of the Sunday morning...blurry, atmospheric, abashed, and slightly angry. And it works very well.
"Song For Clay" starts out the album with a simple vocal and guitar melody that turns into pounding drums and clashing guitars, but it's not quite as explosive as the rockers on Silent Alarm, it still sounds vulnerable. "Hunting For Witches" is a description of how the media has used "fear to keep us all in place", employing electronic-sounding guitars to fill as a symbol of modern paranoia, truly a standout track. "Waiting For the 7.18" is one of my personal favorites, with a somber melody dissolving into blissful noise pop behind the refrain "Let's drive to Brighton on the weekend." "The Prayer" is a slightly weird track, with synth and drums backing the harsh, abrasive verse, and a sweet little guitar melody serving as the backdrop for a chorus that contrasts well with the verse. "Uniform" is a song about the conformity of teens, with soft guitar becoming a riveting guitar solo. "On" provides a drug ballad, with gorgeous, melancholic lyrics such as "Drunken 'I love you's at the top of the world...and when it runs out, we buy more, a flatness so bleak, I've been bitten by a vampire". "Where Is Home?" is similar to "Prayer" in song structure, and is one of the weaker tracks on the LP. It is quite possibly the angriest song on A Weekend In The City, but instead of angsty lyrics, it is a resigned anger about racial injustice. "Kreuzberg" is an underrated song detailing the love the narrator wishes he could find after so many one-night stands. It is a perfect example of the vulnerability that wasn't present on their previous effort. "I Still Remember" is a radio-friendly single concerning an attraction between two schoolboys. "Sunday" is a very atmospheric song that lifts off the ground on its fragile melody. "SRXT" is a perfect closer to the album, a sad ballad about suicide.
One thing I mentioned a lot in the review was the word "melody", and it is appropriate, as the melody is pushed to the forefront more so than in Silent Alarm. Kele Okereke's lyrics serve perfectly to describe a vulnerable, confused young man in the middle of a city with nowhere to turn, surrounded by hypocrisy, corruption, and depression. It's a much darker album, lyrically, but it's a beautiful darkness, with the lyrics serving as a perfect counterpoint to the musicality of the album. There have been a lot of negative reviews for this album, but personally, I feel it is just as strong as Silent Alarm, but it needs a lot more time to grow on you. But what really makes it so appealing is that Bloc Party did not give us more of the same, but took their music in a new and beautiful direction. I can't wait to hear what comes next.
Weekend in the City Poster
The follow-up to their smash debut, "Silent Alarm", is every bit as bright, powerful, and catchy, with the addition of more muscle, attitude, depth, and a bit of polish courtesy of their producer, Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol). Inspired by lead singer Kele Okereke's interest in what he calls "the living noise of a metropolis", this record captures every detail of daily life in a modern city from the ebullient to the mundane. From the quiet desolation of commuting to casual sex, from going out on a Friday night to the long ride home early in the morning, these are songs desperate to understand the meaning that pulses under the moments of our every day.Bloc Party may have arrived in an outbreak of like-minded British bands set upon shooting holes in the Union Jack while knocking out a sharp post-punk soundtrack, but it didn't take long for the foursome to set itself apart from the pack. Fronted by Nigerian-born singer Kele Okereke, the group's 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, soared as much on crystal ambition as it did on ridiculously danceable pop melodies. This follow-up is darker, more cluttered, and harder to digest. That doesn't make it less striking. Exploring themes of racism, terrorism, sexuality, addiction, and death--the usual fodder for a cosmopolitan three-day bender--Weekend in the City is an album that plays to Bloc Party's strengths: tempo-shifting rhythms, inventive art-rock arrangements, and lyrics that twist and turn on a whim. "The Prayer" and "Uniform" are particular standouts, capturing moments when Okereke lets self-importance fade and majestic beats take charge. --Aidin Vaziri
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