A Weekend in the City

This album is solid from front to back. They strike a great balance between hard, mellow, and rock. Many of the songs are very catchy and easy to listen too. Is it their best album, maybe not but it is still a wonderful album. I look forward to following this bang as they grow because they have some real talent.

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.

It is difficult to put into words how unbelievably disappointing this album is. Listening to AWiTC directly after 'Silent Alarm' just leaves one baffled - is this even the same band? Where are the driving drumbeats? The pounding bass line? The intricate guitar parts? Is this Kele Okereke's solo album?

Every song on this album starts the same way: in silence, with a slow instrumental ramp up or sampler loop, and then Kele starts whining. And whining. And whining. And the lyrics are so trite and ridiculous. Take this sample from 'Uniform', perhaps the most irritating song ever recorded:

"Because we are so handsome and we are so bored
So entertain us, tell me a joke
Make it long, make it last forever
Make it cruel just make me laugh
We can't be hurt"

Or this gem from 'Waiting for the 7.18':

"Grinding your teeth in the middle of the night
With the sadness of those molars
Spend all your spare time trying to escape
With crosswords and sudoku"

What does that even mean? It doesn't rhyme. It doesn't have good meter. It isn't sung with force or power. It's like he threw a bunch of words in a hat and then sang each one as he pulled it out, whining nasally over a lackluster backing track.

Most people who know anything about Bloc Party undoubtedly know that 'Silent Alarm' contained a lot of old songs. So maybe that explains this seemingly radical change in sound for the band - they got famous on five-year-old songs and this is their new sound. Well, their new sound is awful. It's the most pretentious wanna-be-Radiohead junk I've had the misfortune to encounter.

There are no standout tracks on this album, zero actual rock songs, no dance numbers. Remember those pounding, intricate drum tracks on 'Silent Alarm'? Well Matt Tong might as well have been replaced with a half-broken drum machine for his miniscule presence on this album.

Somebody tell Kele Okereke that he's not Thom Yorke. We don't need two Radioheads, one has enough pretentiousness for ten. Kele took the 'party' out of Bloc Party. And that's a sad, sad thing. Don't buy this album as it will only depress you. Just spin 'Silent Alarm' for the thousandth time and hope they do better on the next one.

Bloc Party have created another epic here with "A Weekend in the City" If anything it is more solid than the first album. I would highly recommend this album to anyone wanting to get into a new type of music as you really should not be disappointed.

A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party's 2nd album, is one of my top 2 albums of 2007. While this album is less explosive in the rock and loud instrumental as Silent Alarm, that gap is filled by melodic guitar work and entrancing British vocals by Kele. The album is very intimate in expressing the growing social problems between people on many levels, such as love, social behaviors, societal norms, and common ignorance or misconceptions. The band is still heavy in effects, which is wonderful. One of Bloc Party's footprints in music is their intense and consistent use of guitar effects, along with Kele's accent.

It is different than Silent Alarm, but I would say that the band has "evolved" for the better. Please check out this album!

ALSO! There is a set of B-Sides titled "Another Weekend in the City" and has some FANTASTIC songs that you must hear. One B-Side comes along with each single from the original A Weekend in the City. So to have the entire set of B-sides, you need all the singles of A Weekend in the City.