Hey! Bloc party! You have a new album! Which has:
- Awesome artwork
- A better name than your last one
Which would indicate you have ideas, that you’ve progressed from your last mostly awesome album. I listened to ‘Banquet’ for weeks because it sounded like the future. Even your emo penchant played out nicely with a little bit of rocking to stop it ending up like the soggy cornflakes that you’re left with if you trudge through said cereal without putting any sugar on. (Note to people who like soggy cornflakes, and positively encourage the cereal to end up this way: stop it, you ruin it for everyone).
You released the great single ‘The Prayer’ which:
Has an excellent name
Has a mighty sound, not pathetically indie, like bloody Razorlight
Big tribal drums, and then more drums after that
A huge chorus, backed up by quality synths
A winner!
But not quite, the new album runs for four SilentAlarm++ tracks before it trips up slightly, which you can forgive, but it carries on tripping after that, which gets annoying. There’s some good ideas, but they seem to appear after two minutes of some of the tracks, which can be a lot to wade through. The album is over fifty minutes, so its clear that they’ve been indulgent and some fat could clearly be trimmed, either from the tracks themselves, or culling a couple altogether.
I’ve not figured out what should be in there and not, which is further complicated by about ten or so tracks being put out as bonus tracks with the album from different places around the world. Surely there’s a concise 10 track 40 minute album in there somewhere?
The point of the album seems to be being sick of London and musings on being a twenty something figuring out where to go in life from there, but when you’ve done that in the third track, you put yourself in a corner. It’s not a bad album, but it’s not as good as the first, and could have been better from what’s available.
If you like Bloc Party, I’d probably still recommend it on those first four tracks and the ideas scattered around the rest of the album. If I had to give it a rating? It’d be a three out of five that was facing towards the five end but was tipping back towards the one.
I like soggy cornflakes!
Good review. I'm not sure whether to buy it now..
Posted by: Kag at February 20, 2007 1:48 PM