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I’ve been known to talk out of my ass. But let me assure you that whatever I say about Bloc Party’s latest effort is without a doubt thought out. I’ve been sitting on this album for a while now, without giving it much as even a solid opinion, mostly because it just doesn’t grab you like their first album “Silent Alarm.” Does this make it a failure? Not by a long shot.
Some things that strike me. I hate it when bands try to make musical statements. I can see why a band would take this approach to their sophomore effort (aversion to a critical backlash, personal/musical fullfilment, commercial/economic goals, etc.), but why stray away from what worked so well on your first album? Those droning, danceable post-punk guitars on “Silent Alarm” are toned down here for a more U2 arena rock sound.
With a tweeked sound comes another observation: instead of dancing, the new songs make me want to air-guitar. any fool would tell you they’d rather dance than pretend your Slash on “November Rain.” It’s too dorky, even for me.
This thought leads me to another sophomore album trope: trying to sound Important. Who gives a shit? The majority of this album sounds as if the goal was to sound anthemic. But the melodic structure of pretty much all the songs sound a tad too emotive for me. This mood is projected in lead singer Kele’s toned down vocal, only to then fully anunciated later in the song. And what’s with the pro-tooling of his voice? It works for T-Pain, but not so much for Bloc Party.
I do enjoy some parts. The soft-to-loud works for “Song for Clay” since it is an album opener. “Hunting for Witches” definitely rocks. They also add another prom-worthy song with “I Still Remember.” As a whole I can see what they were going for. The rhythm section definitely carry this album.
I know there’s a underlying theme somewhere in this album, but i don’t care enough to dissect it. But I havent stopped listening yet, so that has got to be a godd thing going for this album.
Now, the new Modest Mouse album, that is a piece of trash,
- great to see Rose McGowan back doing work. She was born to do camp like this.
- Freddy Rodriguez is a star. He already showed us his skills on Six Feet Under and Havoc (haha), but here he gave us his most lovable character yet. He and McGowan as a couple is convincing.
- Quentin Tarantini is such a feminist. He should be deconstructing supossively trashy films and writing papers on feminist film theory for the rest of his life.
- Robert Rodriguez has a very romantic view of Mexico and I look forward to any project to see how he uses the country as a character.
- The trio of Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, and Tracie Thoms stole this movie, with Thoms clearly with the breakout performance. I didnt even know R. Dawson was in this movie, and they all benefited from Kurt Russell playing to his scumbag potential.
- Sidney Tamiia Poitier = hotter than July.
- this movie exceeded all my astronomically high expectations. A great moviegoing experience.
