BLOC PARTY - A Weekend In The City LP (colour vinyl)

Limited edition dark green colour vinyl.

With their debut, Silent Alarm, Bloc Party were in the centre of the party maelstrom. It was danceable, pretentious without being too profound, and it was impersonal. Great for ravers and for journalists looking for the next best thing to write up without having to work too hard at interpreting the lyrics.

A Weekend in the City is another ball game altogether. Okereke is glaringly personal here, unveiling his mind and bearing his soul with ferocious frankness. His lyrics are deep, thoughtful, and take in a vast array of issues, all extremely topical for your average kid in London: sex (and sexual ambivalence), drugs, terrorism, loneliness, (anti-)conformism, racism...

The change is reflected in the music as well. The falsely gloomy dance-punk atmosphere of Silent Alarm is gone, replaced with loud, droning guitars worthy of My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead or Ride, scattered drum beats and vibrant bass. It’s dark, repetitive and intense. Okereke wails like a pained martyr, expounding mercilessly on gun culture, intolerance and the manipulation of Britain’s infamous gutter press.