Bloc Party – A Weekend In the City

For those of you who are like, “Bloc Party is so yesterday” you can eat it. I’m just now getting turned on to these guys, and really enjoying it. Their only song I had of theirs was “Hellicopter” — which I love — so I finally decided to go out and buy their most recent disc.

Hailing from London, England, U.K., Europe (3,668 miles east of Washington, DC); Bloc Party first exploded on the scene in 2005 with their album “Silent Alarm” which went platinum in the U.K. after being named the NME Album of the Year. The band got their big break when they saw Franz Ferdinand live and passed off a copy of their single to the band. Good for Franz. The band was obviously around before 2005, and any die hard fan is probably scorning me for not knowing them before the hit the big-time; but the big break was 2005 nonetheless.

So, I guess I would describe their style as heavy indie. It’s not indie in the southern or folky sense, but nor is it it crazy weird “we play 78 different instruments on every track and wear pants that are too short with velcro shoes” indie. They have certainly identified a sound — most of which is driven by their dirty guitar sound.

Here’s a smattering of flavor off of the 2007 disc “A Weekend In the City.”

“Song for Clay” – minor key, heavy and a bit darker – what I would consider standard Bloc Party.

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“I Still Remember” – more poppy and melodic

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“Flux” – electronic driven. Pretty different, and they actually chose this as one of their singles

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