Weekender...

Stereogum don't think that much of Bloc Party's latest... well, they're wrong. I love ya, Stereogum, but...

The opening songs from A Weekend in the City (due out in 2007?) - they've got it all right. They're big, they swell, they're edgy. And they do it in a way that absolutely transfixed me with Silent Alarm. It's the second half that's been taking some criticism; but even after a couple of listens I'm really liking these songs. Okay, so they're a bit softer than we might have expected, and they don't quite have that edge that a lot of BP fans might well have been looking for, but as far as I'm concerned, many of the songs from On on (ho ho) have a breathy, shimmering sexy quality. It's not all wishy washy sentimental "sensitive" bollocks, though; musically jagged, "Where is home?" states "I want to stamp on the face of every old policeman / I want to break the fingers of every old judge / I want to cut off the feet of every ballerina".* That's kinda angsty.

And even if some of the songs are inoffensive, I'm having a hard time saying why that's not a bad thing. I sure don't want Bloc Party to be "offensive". Maybe it's not hard going enough? Does it need to be hard nosed to be challenging? Does it have to be challenging to be edgy?

In a way, I feel that even if it is a bit mellower, a bit more softly-softly (and I'm not necessarily sure that it is), it's still got more going on than 90 billion percent of everything else.

Maybe it is sneakily targeted at 14 year old girls; if that's the case, then sign me up with the hordes of teenyboppers; 'cos I think this is a great album.

*May be incorrectly transcribed. A bit.