Bloc Party: C/D?

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Is that a less intense version of "tearing them a new asshole"?

― .ada.m. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 23:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i think the single banquet is ok. however I can't imagine being captivated by this band. seems almost too formulaic. bloc party are the new franz. the bravery are the new killers. and when I say "new" i really mean they are all rip offs

― owen reading, Tuesday, 18 January 2005 23:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Not really like a complete removal of anal area more a cleansing of the sphincter hopefully washing away some nasty congealed Babyshambles from the particularly nasty stomach upset that was The Libertines's reign of terror but The Bravery look like being some kind of rear guard action butt plugging device designed to keep it all in.

― elwisty, Tuesday, 18 January 2005 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm...now that I'm finally hearing them, I proclaim to be very like Moving Units in my mind, which is no bad thing. It is of a 'type' currently current, to be sure, but it works well enough. Some Cure/Smiths/etc. bands are better than others...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 02:31 (twenty-one years ago)

yay ned!

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 02:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it too. Unusual for me.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 02:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Helicopter.

― Michael Stuchbery (Mikey Bidness), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 05:54 (twenty-one years ago)

they're a thousand times better than the moving units (who i also like)

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 09:24 (twenty-one years ago)

This album is all about the drums. Put a song like 'So Here We Are' in the hands of, say, Snow Patrol or Coldplay and they wouldn't really know what to do with it other than just making the guitars louder and louder. Here they build the momentum just by making the rhythms more and more complex so the guitars can carry on doing that great shimmery thing and the effect is *so much* better.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I fucking love this record. It makes me very happy. I'm loathe to talk or write about it too much though because I've gotta save it for the Stylus review.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 12:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i think they are gonna stick around for awhile. i get that feeling.

― owen reading, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

Okay, confirmed. These guys to me are what Killers etc aren't -- they WORK.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 February 2005 04:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yay, me and Ned like the same thing (and it's not 20 years old).

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 14 February 2005 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck Eddy also agrees! There is a groundswell here. (Listening to the new album and loving it.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 February 2005 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, that just makes it more weird.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 14 February 2005 05:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The record is actually pretty good, but the New Order record probably means that I won't listen to it much (as they're in a similar vein for me). The drumming *is* great.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 14 February 2005 05:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, when I heard the new album tonight I let myself listen closely to the drumming, there's some great stuff there.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 February 2005 07:04 (twenty-one years ago)

the drumming is indeed very good. and i think this album won't wear off as quickly as Franz' album did for me. not as instant hitting but better aging in time i think

― Rizz (Rizz), Monday, 14 February 2005 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2746

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 14 February 2005 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

fantastic review

i wish people in the press would stop comparing them to franz ferdinand

― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Monday, 14 February 2005 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i do like that they are much better than what i expected. 'So Here We Are' reminded me of a number of tracks and acts from '91 (but can't quite think who - that's a good thing tho).

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Monday, 14 February 2005 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

It's Adorable. I swear.

― nabiscothingy, Monday, 14 February 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

This is no problem at all! (I think you are right though in that I was trying to remember who the hell the singer reminded me of.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 14 February 2005 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

It's Adorable. I swear.

but much better! (and i love the first Adorable LP)

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Monday, 14 February 2005 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

this is ok you guys!!!

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 00:05 (twenty-one years ago)

thank you, bloc party. i listened to your album all day and it kicked my ass. you're everything i pretended that the Futureheads were doing perfectly and everything that Interpol failed to do on Antics... but why oh why did my girlfriend say that you sounded... emo? She's wrong, right? I know she's wrong. Tell me she's wrong.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 05:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, she's not so much wrong as she's sorta not right.

Opinion of album = !!!!!!!

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 05:44 (twenty-one years ago)

"so here we are" is pretty emo sounding--if only for that appegioed guitar line.

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 08:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Yea, i listened to it twice more. There's a few instances where I think, "Shit. If that guy from Blink-182 was singing this, I'd hate it." Oh well. Good thing they're Britons.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 08:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I heart it.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

quality definitely declines in the late innings of silent alarm. but overall good!

― harshaw (jube), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 09:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Singles are hot but on lots of the other songs his voice sounds wack and I don't like it.

― LeCoq (LeCoq), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 09:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah the last couple of tracks on Silent Alarm don't quite hold up to the rest but the dual guitar bit at the end of the Plans is great.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I love it too. Price of Gas, She's Hearing Voices, So Here We are, are highlights. And also "The Marshalls are Dead" - is this on the album? Dunno, cos I've always (well, for a few months), just had a 28 track compilation.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a few instances where I think, "Shit. If that guy from Blink-182 was singing this, I'd hate it."

Hahah -- a fellow writer friend down here was complaining about BP precisely because of a Blink-182 similarity. (He preferred the Futureheads, which I admit I've not yet heard.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, am I the only person that doesn't love this lot? I mean, I've tried listening to a few tracks and I'm just not getting what you're seeing here - they just seem ordinary. I'm not hating them, but I'm not in the least exicted by them either.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Watch the videos. Read the interviews. They're a really likeable band and once you're familiar with them, it adds a bit to the music itself.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess I'm avoiding them because all this hype smacks of desperation on the part of the British press.
They seem marginally less repellant than some of the other over-hyped British bands. But I'm yet to be grabbed by anything of theirs except the Phones Disco edit of "Banquet".

― TayBridge, Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

They're a really likeable band and once you're familiar with them, it adds a bit to the music itself.

This never does anything for me.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

fantastic nitsuh!

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

tht should obviously say 'nitsuh fantastic', sorry.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks, Cozen. Mixed reactions to that review have actually clarified to me what I was trying to get across with it: that this album is like audibly great and really well-made but can't quite get me to the point of getting super-enthusiastic about it; it's "just" a really well-made rock record.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Which, of course, is a perfectly great thing to be!

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

better than me!

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

But you're a really well-made rock record critic, Cozen!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Cozen has a more memorable personality than Bloc Party. (Which is okay, because Bloc Party are good enough not to need too much personality.)

Also, Ned, the other person their singer kinda sounds like sometimes -- weirdly -- is Colin Hay from Men at Work.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the epitome of the emo uneasiness I'm experiencing with the record is on track two or three where all the instrumentation drops and the lead singer squeals, "So fuckin' useless!" I mean, I don't mind it all that much-- it just sets off my Third Eye Blind sensors...

And "Price of Gas" kind of bugs me for some reason. Maybe I can't relate because I don't have a car (or live in Britain-- is it worse off there?), but I kind of want to say, "Yep... the price of gas is high...and?" It'd be like if I recorded a song called, "The Value of the Dollar" that went, "The dollar's getting weaker / The dollar's getting weaker... So fuckin' useless!

Otherwise, awesome record. Nabisco, I like your take: it's solid, but it doesn't have that, um, "urgency" or, er, "magic" that you get sense sometimes when you hear something fresh (the way I felt after I picked up Arcade Fire). That doesn't mean it's bad. The Stylus review pumped me up ("I belive in this!"), but it didn't last... It's still my favorite thing to come this year so far.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

poortheatre, the price of gas is not in dollars! It is in blooooood.

That said, I like the song.

― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Re: that song I do really like the ambiguity of the “we’re gonna win this” cry.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 22:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Paul McCartney had a song called "The Pound Is Sinking." (It's great.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 317 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

there you go-go
looking like a snack
cute like bambi
meet me in the boom boom room

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 24 November 2021 03:55 (four years ago)

one year passes...

intimacy sounds great today

― ivy., Saturday, 9 September 2023 22:46 (two years ago)

Their best

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 9 September 2023 22:46 (two years ago)

fuck, are you right????

― ivy., Sunday, 10 September 2023 05:14 (two years ago)

no way!!! half is good-to-great but the other half is mediocre-to-'wtf were they thinking'

― ufo, Sunday, 10 September 2023 07:46 (two years ago)

Could barely make it through one listen of this album. Such a huge fall off from Silent Alarm to Weekend in the City to this

― Vinnie, Sunday, 10 September 2023 13:04 (two years ago)

possible that "talons," "better than heaven," and "ion square" (plus "letter to my son") are tricking me into thinking this but... those songs are sooooo good

― ivy., Sunday, 10 September 2023 13:47 (two years ago)

yeah those tracks (and "trojan horse" and "signs") are all very good but still like, what the fuck is "mercury", what the fuck is "ares", why does "one month off" sound like a very weird remix of "banquet" and so on

― ufo, Sunday, 10 September 2023 14:00 (two years ago)

Ares and Mercury <3

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Sunday, 10 September 2023 14:03 (two years ago)

Setting Sun and Peek-a-Boo getting on very well in the late summer heat.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Sunday, 10 September 2023 14:04 (two years ago)

five months pass...

you get sadder
the smarter you get
and it's a bore

― ivy., Monday, 12 February 2024 05:04 (two years ago)

intimacy really became one of my favorite albums of all time in the last five months, lol

― ivy., Monday, 12 February 2024 05:06 (two years ago)

wild that you bumped this today! I was thinking about and listening to Bloc Party yesterday

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Monday, 12 February 2024 15:32 (two years ago)

i think i've restated a million times itt why post-silent alarm bloc party doesn't "work" for me on the same level as silent alarm only to develop special and personal relationships with all of those records*. even four, which has no cohesion whatsoever but the songs are still really good

i listened to intimacy probably two or three times in college and found it hard to get past the brash and dissonant opening (i also think i heard it before "talons" was added to the tracklist, so crucial to the album's functioning), but now i love those songs, especially "ares," which seems to be running off the fumes of the apocalyptic stakes from weekend in the city, exuding so much cultural exhaustion there's nothing to do but to retreat into the interpersonal and intimate, thus the rest of the record. they also do such a good job of staking out the sonic parameters of the record, recognizably bloc party but manipulated and fragmented by machines, just as machines mediate the relationships that form and dissolve over the course of the record — i'm not sure any of the lyrics support this suggestion but the overwhelming vibe of the record to me is "sneaking a glance at your partner's texts and finding out more than you bargained for"

*og lineup only, tho who can say, can't see it happening but maybe catch me in five years repping hymns lol

― ivy., Monday, 12 February 2024 16:05 (two years ago)

one year passes...

their tiny desk had a relatively new (2023) song on it and i really liked it!!!! so here i am listening to latter day bloc party. hymns isn't so bad, mostly suffers from its dedication to minimalism and the midtempo, but "different drugs" is astonishing

― ivy., Wednesday, 16 July 2025 13:28 (ten months ago)

lol i forgot i listened to it at the time and liveblogged it upthread

― ivy., Wednesday, 16 July 2025 13:32 (ten months ago)

i'm gonna drop "different drugs" in a dj set one day and everyone will be like "what is this amazing song" and i will be like "latter day bloc party"

― ivy., Wednesday, 16 July 2025 13:33 (ten months ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p8T7JT8LK0

really good tiny desk btw

― ivy., Wednesday, 16 July 2025 13:33 (ten months ago)

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