Artist: Bloc Party
Label: EMI Records
Release: 2007
A Weekend in the City is the second studio album from English band Bloc Party., produced by Jacknife Lee. Thematically it’s a lot darker than their debut, Silent Alarm, from 2005. This time around, Kele turned his lyrics toward a critique of modern city life, teenage struggles with sex, drugs and violence.
Listening to the album, you could split it into two parts. The first is pretty massive and energetic sound-wise. The calm start to the weekend in the city with Song for Clay (Disappear here) soon morphs into that signature Bloc Party. sound. Off-beats, alternative guitar patterns and the intensity of Kele’s vocals battle against the influence of modernization in Hunting For Witches too, which is definitely one of the standout tracks on this album.
Waiting for 7.18 gives off a sense of endlessness. A gentle lullaby sound melts into a choppy rhythm. The Prayer takes us into a completely different mood, with hand claps, murmuring sounds and a cunning rawness. They stage their own musical-dance ritual, with the band dictating how the bodies move. In the song Uniform, Kele describes the boredom with the uncreativity of young rebels hanging around in shopping malls.
On could be described mostly as a sort of intro to the album’s second thematic half, since it doesn’t leave much of an impression. After Where is the Home? comes a trio of love- and sex-oriented songs: Kreuzberg, I still remember and Sunday. From memories of a casual sexual encounter in Berlin, to drugs and a hungover Sunday, the weekend in the city wraps up with SRXT. A melancholic lyric and a melodic, rather epic tune carry us to the end of this record, so full of today’s problems.
A Weekend In The City is undoubtedly a step up from what Bloc Party. achieved back in the Silent Alarm era. Still, in a fully indie sound and with noticeable maturing, Bloc Party carve out their own world of music for their own circle of listeners. Their beat will pull one person completely unconsciously into ecstatic, blissful movement while listening, while it may leave another totally cold even after repeated listens.
Lineup
Bloc Party. are:
Kele Okereke (Vocals/Guitar)
Russel Lissack (Guitar)
Gordon Moakes (Bass)
Matt Tong (Drums)
Production
Jacknife Lee
Track list
1.Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
2.Hunting For Witches
3.Waiting for the 7.18
4.The Prayer”
5.Uniform”
6.On
7.Where Is Home?
8.Kreuzberg
9.I Still Remember
10.Sunday
11.SRXT
