Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City

When you listen to the opening minute of the first track Song For Clay (Disappear Here) you could be forgiven for thinking that Bloc Party have completely lost it. No catchy guitar riffs, just Kele Okereke trying hit high notes that Mariah Carey would have trouble reaching. Unfortunately, when you've got to the end of the album you'll probably feel exactly the same way. Bloc Party were one of the few bright lights of the Indie scene and rather than move forward and develop they seem to have stood still.

Bloc Party have never been known for their profound, witty lyrics but on A Weekend in the City they seem to have based all their songs around pissy poems written in the back of a sixth form students text book. Uniform, the bands anthem against all that is wrong with the identikit youth of today contains some cringeworthy, cliche ridden lines and ideas that have already been used by bands probably half as good as Bloc Party. The last thing we want is them to go down the "You laugh at me because i'm different, I mock you because you're all the same" road.

Saying that, this isn't a complete dud of an album. Tracks such as the first two singles, The Prayer and I Still Remember can't fail to have you swaying to the beat and cracking a wry smile at the mention of teacher training days. Other tracks like Sunday and Hunting For Witches thankfully stray from the swelling 'light start-heavy finish' layout that nearly every song on this album is lumbered with.

Bloc Party have fell foul of difficult second album syndrome. The weight of expectation was on their shoulders and they seem to have fluffed it. The most annoying thing of all is that there is the bare bones of a good album here but they just seem to have got complacent, stuck to the same song structure and used some poor lyrics. It also doesn't help that they've been going about shooting their mouths off about every band under the sun. Lets just keep our fingers crossed that get their heads down and can pull something out the bag when they get to that not-so-hard third release.