Bloc Party: Intimacy

In its short lifetime,

Bloc Party has shown an admirable willingness to turn its back on what fans

want. The relatively lightweight post-punk songs on 2005's solid Silent

Alarm

nose-dived into paranoid darkness on 2007's underrated A Weekend In The City, written in the aftermath

of London's 7/7 bombings. Weekend drew a mostly tepid reception, the kind that

sends some bands scurrying to revisit past successes. If Intimacy is any indication, Bloc

Party has only grown more antagonistic. Gone is the slick, guitar-heavy

post-punk of the past; in its place is percussive, synthesizer-laden electronic

rock with a predilection for disjointed rhythms.

Bloc Party showed its

intentions in July with "Mercury," the grating-yet-catchy single from the

then-unannounced Intimacy. (For now, the album is available only as a

download; it's scheduled for physical release on October 21.) Anchored by

thunderous beats and Kele Okereke's irritatingly repetitious vocal hiccups, "Mercury"

embodies what the rest of Intimacy has in store. Sometimes it works (as in the

opener, "Ares"), and other times, it misses the target entirely. (The stylistic

train-wreck of "Zephyrus" is the album's interminable low point.) Only "Halo"

explores straightforward guitar rock, and it's the only track that sounds

familiar outright. The others have varying degrees of recognition, depending on

how much Bloc Party tinkers with its style.

The changes become less

jarring with repeated listens, but the album never quite coheres or hits a

stride. With the exception of "Mercury," the band barely road-tested these

songs—Bloc Party pulled a Radiohead by abruptly announcing Intimacy just a week before its

release—and they seemingly suffer from studio myopia. In its cloistered

walls, a track like "Zephyrus" can make sense, but maybe the harsh light

onstage could have revealed its flaws. Bloc Party has a lot of ideas on Intimacy, but the band should have

given itself more time to figure them out.