Album Reviews

Despite the band’s name, there’s not much of a party going on in the lyrics of this UK quartet’s thoughtful second album. World events and how they affect today’s young people in the UK are at the core of the band’s viewpoint.

Combining the earnestness and sensitivity of Coldplay with the bombast and worldview of U2 and the intensity of The Mars Volta, Bloc Party taps into a young generation’s growing alienation and sense that the good times are over for good.

“I am trying to be heroic/In an age of modernity….as all around me history sinks,” the lead singer confesses on the opening “Song For Clay,” adding that while he goes through the motions of luxurious consumption, nothing really touches him deeply.

The next song, the chilling “Hunting For Witches,” deals with trading 1990’s teen optimism for the ongoing fear of terrorism and increasing immigration “The newscaster says the enemy is among us, As bombs explode on the 30s bus, Kill your middle class indecision, Now is not the time for liberal thought.”

Even a song like “The Prayer,” about dreaming of winning a dance contest has a joyless core as the singer questions the desire: “Is it wrong to crave recognition?” he asks himself as he pumps himself up for the competition.

In “Uniform,” the group powerfully explores the dreary conformity of a cynical generation. “I am a martyr I just need a motive, I am a martyr I just need a cause, I am a believer I just need a moment, I’m a believer I just need a cause,” the singer pleads.

A Weekend in the City is a powerful, yet bleak look at how a working/middle class generation finds the world and how it attempts to cope with limited future choices in an age of growing uncertainty. The optimism of a previous generation has been replaced with picking up scraps to get by.

Occasionally the songs rise above dejection and alienation to reach fearsome anger, as in “Where is Home?” in which the group sings “I walk this modern tight-rope, Of humility and belligerence, This tommy-rot flag waving, Is getting me down, I want to stomp on the face of every young policeman, To break the fingers of every old judge…”, but in the end, “…I cannot, So I just sigh, and I just sulk”.

The arrangements are appropriately spare, with guitars, bass, drums and synths predominating, though there are two tunes with strings but because of the utterly inept recording, you’d hardly know they’re not synth derived.

Unfortunately, to get to the quality of the playing and the drama and thoughtfulness of the tunes, you’ll have to endure a recording of such ineptitude it’s heartbreaking. It’s sad that sound quality has come to this kind of flat, un-dynamic, annoyingly two-dimensional, frequency restricted crap. The recording of the drums is so glaringly inept I don’t know where to start. There’s no “pop,” no “snap,” no shimmer, no explosiveness whatsoever. It’s just plain fucking mush.

There’s almost no image definition, so everything is squashed between plates of glass in a two dimensional world. Ice coats all of the vocals, harmonic development is totally stunted and so the music’s drama is smothered and buried under the rubble.

You can hear how magnificent this music might be had it been given a chance to breath and develop and what’s most pathetic is that it seems as if the producer and engineer actually tried and think they’ve succeeded in producing something that sounds good. A song like “I Still Remember,” with its early U2 exuberance and multipart harmonies should soar but it lays flat. The recording was even mixed at famed Olympic Studios but it sounds like a computer-driven ProTools recording and no amount of mixing skill is going to save it.

The dramatic finale, “SRXT,” is a song worthy of Procol Harum’s most grandiose productions, but unfortunately the more elements the producer pours in, the more congested, confused and mushy the picture gets and when the sound is supposed to swell dramatically, the compression is so over the top, nothing happens. Just for the hell of it I went back and played “The Grand Finale” from Procol Harum’s 1968 album Shine On Brightly album (Regal Zonophone SLRZ1004) and there was bass, instrumental definition and even a semblance of dynamic build and drive.

Bloc Party is a thoughtful group of young men who deserve better production, more dynamic sound and greater care in the overall process of taking their musical ideas and translating them to disc. The production folks here tried, but they are simply not up to the task, or the budget didn’t allow it. However, don’t let the mush stop you. This record is an insightful look at a generation’s dilemma and the group’s popularity in both the UK and America is both deserved and understandable. I’d buy this on iTunes before I’d spend the money on the double vinyl. The record doesn’t buy you better sound. In fact it sounds no better than an MP3.