I realize this review seems late. After all, A Weekend in the City has been out for nearly 2 months now, not to mention the leak that’s been available since November of last year. Nearly everyone and their cousin has offered their opinion, praise, hatred, bias, etc. I suppose I wanted to make sure I had really come to ‘know’ the album. I’ve had a soft spot for Bloc Party ever since I first picked up the Bloc Party EP and heard what I think is the definitive version of ‘She’s Hearing Voices’. When Silent Alarm came out, I was spinning multiple tracks from that album at my weekly DJ gigs. I really felt the band were trying to do something interesting, and eagerly awaited new material.
Perhaps it was that bias - or fondness - that made me wait. I wanted to be sure my impressions were genuine. I wanted to choose my words carefully with such a valued friend. But sometimes we must be cruel to be kind, right? So here we go.
WITC is a mixed bag. That’s the simplest way to say it. It starts promisingly, decays gradually, falls apart completely then manages to rally the troops for it’s final track.
‘Song for Clay (Disappear Here)’ is a decent enough opener. Slow buildup, crunching guitars & Kele Okereke’s haunting vocals. The only downside here is the somewhat clunky lyrics - “I am trying to be heroic in an age of modernity” doesn’t exactly roll smoothly off one’s tongue. But the lyrics themselves are delivered by Okereke in such a sincere tone that combined with Matt Tong’s near-metronomic drumming & Russell Lissack’s powerful guitar work the song is a winner. Plus, how can I hate on a line like “East London is a vampire/it sucks the joy right out of me”?
‘Hunting for Witches’ is another strong entry and clearly harkens back to the sounds of Silent Alarm moreso than this effort. It opens with a rhythmic surf through a radio dial, then jumps right into another impressive display of drumming from Tong. ‘Waiting for the 7.18′ has been around in various live formats for some time now, and the final version doesn’t stray too far from the original. It’s still a beautiful song and can be seen as an obvious decendent of ‘This Modern Love’, both in sound and lyrics. Play them back-to-back and you’ll know what I mean.
‘The Prayer’ comes next, and it was the song that first gave me cause for concern. The lyrics are fabulous, I’ve got no qualms there. They capture what probably every one of us has thought at one time or another, especially as teenagers. What struck me was how the song seems to amplify the weakest elements of Okereke’s vocals. The long, drawn-out, borderline droning quality of the first minute or so of the song - “Is it so wroooooooooooong” - grates very quickly. What doesn’t help that weak spot is the dirge-like nature of the song’s pacing. There’s a Does It Offend You, Yeah? remix floating out there which I think tackles the song more effectively.
‘Uniform’ fares much better, starting out as a calm - somewhat restrained - sarcastic response to modern youth culture and right around the 2:30 mark loses it’s temper and turns slightly more sinister with the introduction of a wicked Gordon Moakes bassline and a lyrical call-and-response about accepting one’s role in society. The response section filters Okereke’s vocals vocoder-style, making the machine-like answers of ‘You have things to pass the time/You can be happy just being dumb’ that much more chilling. The song closes as it begins - both lyrically and musically - as though after venting Okereke was able to regain his composure.
Starting with ‘On’ the album begins what I call it’s ‘meandering phase’. ‘On’ bears lyrical similarity to ‘The Prayer’ but fails to have a voice of it’s own. ‘Where is Home?’ has a strong message to share but somehow the delivery fails to inspire. ‘Kreuzberg’ is yet another slow-burner that builds but never seems to develop to it’s full potential.
‘I Still Remember’ is Bloc Party’s ‘Chasing Cars’. It’s a pretty & heartfelt love song with a catchy hook. Yet it feels somewhat…perfunctory. It’s not that every song has to have the aggression of ‘Banquet’, ‘She’s Hearing Voices’ or ‘Price of Gas’. Far from it. But ‘I Still Remember’ comes along at a point where the album needed a little punch to recover from the slow patch that preceeded it and the slow patch that follows it. It’s a weak production effort (something I’ll come back to). ‘Sunday’ sounds nearly identical to ‘I Still Remember’, not only in theme but by virtue of their oddly similar rhythm sections. It fails to stand on it’s own.
The album closes out with ‘SRXT’, an abbreviation for Seroxat, an anti-depressant. Not that one needed to know that, given the obvious references to someone preparing the world for their impending suicide. It’s an interesting choice for closure given the content, but it actually manages to uplift, if not through it’s lyrics then through it’s orchestration (an angelic choir section kicks in around 3:02). It’s a clear demonstration that when given the right framework, Bloc Party can pull off more dramatic, slower pieces.
My final thoughts?
A producer is really another band member. He’s a not-so-silent partner that the audience never sees but always hears. Many bands know this, and subsequently tend to stick with one producer for at least their first few albums - Blur, U2, The Smiths all come to mind - before experimenting with another. Changing guitar players often changes a band dynamic, why not the same effect when changing a producer?
On that note, I think that at least part of the album’s failings lie in it’s production. The album was produced by Garret “Jacknife” Lee, best known for his work with Snow Patrol & U2. At least one of those artists benefited from his ’soft touch’ approach; Bloc Party do not. A number of the weaker songs that compose the middle of the album might have played out with greater conviction had the production managed to keep up. On Silent Alarm, producer Paul Epworth managed to infuse even the most tender moments with boundless energy. On the reverse, Lee seems to dial it down when it’s needed most. It seems like a minor thing, but in the end it makes Weekend in the City a good album, not a great one.
- Sean
