Intimacy (New Version)

Description

Product Description Bloc Party return with their third full-length album Intimacy. Produced by Paul Epworth (Silent Alarm) and Jacknife Lee (A Weekend In The City), the record fuses the sounds of their first two to great effect. While the band have moved into territory that includes electronic sounds and broken beats, they have also held on to the shredding, angular guitar lines and powerful melodies that helped give them their reputation from the outset. Arguably their most accomplished release to date. This new version also includes the single "One More Chance" for the first time. .co.uk Bloc Party fans have awaited the arrival of Intimacy, the band's third studio LP, with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Where their debut Silent Alarm (produced by Paul Epworth) was universally touted as a modern classic, 2007's follow up A Weekend in the City, produced by Jacknife Lee, was equally flamboyant yet patchier. Intimacy is helmed by both Lee and Epworth and the brittle contours, mish-mash of influences and semi-awkward lyrics are quintessential Bloc Party. Mixing up everything from micro-house and dub-step to indie rock and electro pop, there's a willful energy here reminiscent of the band's debut, though the spikier elements remind more of AWITC. Opening cut "Ares" sets out the band's stall with a bombastic brew of high-energy drums, preening guitars and urgent sirens, while upbeat lead single "Mercury," employs a quirky astrological motif. These prove to be the most charged tracks on the record as elsewhere the band indulge in choral-chanting and strings ("Zephyrus"), angsty art-rock ("Halo") and a surprisingly uplifting finale in the shape of "Ion Square". Intimacy, as we should have guessed, is predictably unpredictable: knowingly difficult, defiantly angular yet eminently likeable. --Danny McKenna