Bloc Party - Intimacy

Source: The Midgie
Date: 1 October 2008
Written by: Jonny Ensall

Bloc Party’s 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, has been a definitive album of the noughties, laying a sonic template for spiky indie-dance with a thumping beat that’s been well observed by bands ever since. Their latest offering, Intimacy, displays many signs of creative maturity. The songs focus on one of lead singer Kele Okereke’s bad break ups and are more introspective than the fierce dueling guitars and shouted slogans of modernity that made up Silent Alarm. The dueling guitars are there, but they’re layered over with new rave sampling, synths and drum breaks. The move towards electronica, and the fact that the album is only available as a digital release, have drawn inevitable comparisons with Radiohead, but Bloc Party have not completely disappeared into the abstract netherworld just yet. They’re still singing about taking the late tube home and have successfully held onto all their British grit.

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