I am not a Bloc Party fan. I am a fanatic. In my opinion, ‘Silent Alarm,” the band’s 2005 album, is a work of pure lyrical and musical genius. With notable hits such as ‘This Modern Love” and ‘Banquet,” this album rose to No. 3 on the UK charts and garnered significant commercial success and critical acclaim on both sides of the pond.
Needless to say, I was one among millions impatiently awaiting Bloc Party’s sophomore attempt, which dropped on Feb. 5. Entitled ‘A Weekend in the City,” this album was already tagged in my head as the music event of the month, maybe of the year. The masses seemed to agree, as the album rose to No. 2 in the UK and Australia and even No. 12 in the States.
I even went as far as buying the album on iTunes because it was available a day earlier there. This says volumes about my expectations: I haven’t purchased music in a couple of years and then it was only to buy ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”
I listened to the singles first, ‘The Prayer” (UK) and ‘I Still Remember” (US) and was surprisingly disappointed. Maybe that is not the right word. I was destroyed, distraught and in complete dysphoria. Where was the band that I had championed as the next evolution of mainstream alternative rock?
All of the spiky guitar that had dominated the first album and made so many tracks from ‘Silent Alarm” memorable was nonexistent. In fact, it was not the style of guitar that had vanished, but the instrument itself. These tracks seem to be almost entirely mechanical drum beats (uncharacteristic of drummer Matt Tong) and vocalist Kele Okereke’s loud talking.
Judging from these two tracks, Okereke simply forgot how to sing between 2005 and 2007 and thus opted to not even try but to instead shout and hope it came out right. His voice was never top notch, but its rawness coupled with stunning lyrics made up for that minor flaw.
Furthermore, the subdued guitar and bass makes for a lackluster performance that was wildly incongruous to my expectations.
I didn’t want to keep listening. I even almost gave up on the album as a whole after hearing those two tracks. But a friend reminded me that it wasn’t fair to compare the new album against the old one, ‘Silent Alarm:” it is simply too good to expect the same every time.
Bloc Party, like most good bands, has a way of growing on a listener. Thus, upon digging deeper, I discovered the best of the album. ‘Kreuzberg” and ‘Hunting for Witches” star Russell Lissack creating the Joy Division-esque riffs that I longed for and the more melodious vocals that I needed to invest more time in the album.
Upon further inspection, the album is not worse than the previous, just wildly different. ‘A Weekend in the City” provides a
Environment
Hartnett Gallery
The majority of the populations of both the U.S. and the U.K. evidently understand the need to move towards a renewable energy model for their countries. According to the DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker, 80% of British adults support the use of renewable energy as of the summer of 2025. The Pew Research Center has reported that 86% of American adults support expanding wind and solar power as of May 2025. Read More
Climate Change
Hartnett Gallery
We teach the Dust Bowl as a cautionary tale. In every American history class, we learn how farmers in the 1920s and 1930s tore up millions of acres of native grassland across the Great Plains to plant wheat, how the deep-rooted prairie grasses that held the soil and trapped moisture were replaced by shallow crops and bare fields, and, when drought came in 1930, how the exposed topsoil turned to dust. Read More
Alysa Liu
Hartnett Gallery
Women's figure skating individual finals have taken the spotlight with Alysa Liu’s recent return to the sport leading to the first U.S. women’s gold since 2002. Read More
