Day 278 - Bloc Party - 'Anatomy Of A Brief Romance'
A while ago, I came across a review thread for this, the latest Bloc party album. I wasn't even aware they were still around, let alone that they had released a new album recently. There was a time - especially during those first three records of theirs - where they were always on my playlists. But then, somewhere along the way, certainly after 'Intimacy', I just stopped... caring about them. I didn't much love the very few singles I heard here and there, so I just stopped following them. But these reviews I read, man, they weren't exactly glowing. They (mostly) said that this wasn't a good record, with cringey themes and lyrics, and that they were treading old paths again - the narrative of a break-up - only with not so great results.
Having listened to this, I have to agree with the reviews. It's not a great record, and it's absolutely cringey as fuck. But cringey also means awkward, right? And break-ups and what comes after can truly be cringey, especially in this day and age, what with how easily people share their lives on social media.
And this runs the gamut from their first encounter, to the getting to know one another, to the euphoria of those first few months, and then to how slowly things start to change, and then suspicions arise, and distance grows between them, and there's cheating, and everything ends, and then comes a lot of pain and denial and a form of acceptance, then comes the picking up the pieces and trying to live life again, but this being the age it is, they both still check each other's stories, and it's a pity because now they can't be friends, and there's a loneliness that only can only be alleviated by sleeping with strangers. You see what I mean?
Of course, this is the story of a relationship between two gay men, and though there are certain narrative elements that would differentiate that relationship from another type, in the end these experiences are mostly universal, regardless of your sexuality. We've all had break-ups. We've all had feelings of loss, and mourned the absence of someone who we loved and trusted in and is no longer part of your life. We've all felt the temptation of stalking them online. We all know how all this feels.
So, translating this to a music record, how does this hold up? Well, it's very messy, and very cringey, especially on the lyrical side, where it borders on the juvenile. And that's an indictment on this very digital era we live in where people overshare anything and everything. And this airing of their dirty laundry is just so... so unbecoming. But that's not even the gravest sin here, truth be told. It's the fact that if I didn't know this was a Bloc Party album, then I think I'd've never guessed it, because most of it sounds very little like Bloc Party, and more like basic run of the of the mill electronic pop, with Kele trying to sound as theatric and operatic as he can. And it really bothered me because the energy, the anger, the true emotion I loved is his voice... is just not there anymore.
So is it all bad? Not really, it does end quite well, with track 'Rotherhithe' having some delicate and beautiful guitar work. There's also some bits that are very reminiscent of New Order, which is always good. But at 48 minutes long - which isn't overly long, for me, just crosses that threshold where I'd rather have a record at 45 minutes or lower - there are 14 tracks total, and by God, some of them could have been B-sides. Not good, not great, but not awful. It deserves a 5/10
Day 279 - The Strokes - 'Reality Awaits'
I knew at once which bands would be featured in this run, but I had some doubts about this entry because it could have been one of two bands : either The Strokes, or Yeah Yeah Yeahs, because to me they fit the same category, meaning that they're bands that have at least two or three songs per album that I really love, but the rest of their songs just leave me cold.
The last album I listened to in full by them was, jesus, twenty years ago now, with 'First Impressions Of Earth'. I maybe listened to a few singles here and there over the years, but I never cared enough to follow up on them. And because I listen to my music (mostly) on Apple Music, I'm often treated to a brief review on the album page. I read it, and it mentions that Julian uses autotune here, which I'm not sure whether or not he did in the past, I can't recall. And I hate autotune. I immediately thought that it would annoy the holy hell out of me.
Truth be told... it did. And though I respect the artistic choice, I daresay the album would have been that much better without it. And the album is fine, I suppose, and it's just like my previous experiences with their albums : I really like a few tracks and the others are just filler for me. There's some of their trademark sound here, to be sure, and enough of it to produce some good tracks. Didn't blow me away, but neither did I find it utterly disappointing. It gets a 6/10
Day 280 - Editors - 'EBM'
This one was so, so weird. But to put things in context, I loved the first three Editors albums. But that's all I know from them, because aside from maybe a single here and there, they sort of fell off my radar. So when I was doing my research, I landed on this album, which is named after the band and a new collaborator (Blanck Mass) as well as the genre itself - Electronic Body Music. I know that they had veered towards the more electronic sound, their album 'In This Light and on This Evening' is proof of that, but I wasn't aware that they had turned to such an extreme. And there's absolutely no EBM here, though the album is rife with synths and electronics, and fairly good at that as well. But - and there's a huge but here - I have a problem with this album. And that problem is that it sounds almost nothing like the Editors I knew. Sometimes it does, but not enough for me, and especially not on the vocal side. I'm still not convinced that it was sung by Tom Smith, whose voice I loved both on Editors as well as Smith & Burrows. And here, it sounds nothing like him, except for maybe just for one or two songs - certainly the track 'Silence' is the most reminiscent of it.
I didn't hate this, not at all, but I wouldn't have guessed this was an Editors album if I hadn't known. And maybe it would have benefited from being called something else - perhaps a side project called EBM. I don't know. I found it to have no energy at all, nothing like a 'Munich' or a 'Papillon' or a 'Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors'. It left me mostly cold, but it was decent. I just can't find it in me to give it more than a 6/10
Day 281 - Franz Ferdinand - 'The Human Fear'
I was almost going to say that out of all these bands I chose, Franz Ferdinand was the one I was the most indifferent to. But that's not true. Well, not entirely. Just like the previous bands, their first three records were stellar for me. However, by the time album number four arrived in 2013, I was going through the worst year of my life and though much music I listened to back then ended up saving me, Franz Ferdinand were not among them. They'd be, shortly thereafter.
Now, if 2013 was the worst year of my life, the next two years weren't any easier, and to make things worse, I got to know someone very evil that preyed on my kindness and on my very frail state of mind, and she made my life a living hell, either directly or by proxy, for quite a long time. And what this has to do with Franz Ferdinand is that she grew up with them, and they are close friends. Summer 2015 they came around for the tour of their collaborative album with Sparks, 'FFS'. As an olive branch, the wicked witch offered me a backstage pass, and I got to hang out with the band (very cool people), and thoroughly embarrass myself whilst talking to their then drummer Paul Thomson. Of course, I was very, very drunk. The gig itself I didn't find memorable, and I never bothered to listen to the album itself, and I think I only listened to a single of theirs since then.
This album was very, very fun. Initially I didn't find very much of early FF here, but sometimes there'll be some moments that do hark back to it, and maybe that's a not bad thing. It's very poppy, very hooky, with contagious bits of music that just make you want to jump around. It's very light, both in terms of how it sounds as well as the (decidedly) dark thematic is presented. In a very weird way, some of the things here remind me of The Beatles. And it's just 35 minutes long, which makes it absolutely breeze by. Very fun, it gets a good 7.5/10
Day 282 - The Killers - 'Pressure Machine'
I've always loved The Killers. Ever since I first head 'Somebody Told Me'. Man, that album, 'Hot Fuss' is so so good. But 'Sam's Town', when it first came out did almost nothing for me. I might have given it a couple of cursory listens, but I quickly shelved it. But 'Day & Age' did something for me that made me revisit 'Sam's Town' and I got it at once. I finally got it. So, yeah - again, those first three albums. And I have to say that around 2009 or so I was so in love with them, so, so in love with Brandon Flowers - not in a romantic way, but in a cool way where I loved how he looked, how he dressed, how he had his hair cut, I just wanted to look like him. But then, somewhere along the way, I stopped going after them. Yes, I still listened to the old stuff, but they released albums I never listened to and never had any real curiosity to find out how they sounded. And inside of a few minutes I instantly felt very angry with this record.
It was... huh. Slow. Folky. No... no oomph, no zing, no energy. Two songs and I'm writing the eulogy already. And while I did so in my mind, I was becoming aware that pretty much a running theme across all bands featured here today is that I loved them especially during all of their first three albums. And in some cases, those first three albums were twenty years ago or close to it. So, of course things will be different now, right? And there's good different and bad different. Expecting the same energy and vivacity and this happy go lucky attitude of youth isn't reasonable. Is it? Maybe, maybe not.
But that line of thought led me to appreciate this album a whole lot more, and to actively listen to what was going on, and it ultimately won me over. So much so that this is an album to which I plan to return often, and very soon. Is this the kind of sexually charged music they used to make? No, this is more like grown-up music, about our dreams, aspirations and failing. This isn't dancer, this is human. Bitingly so.
I actually really, really loved this one, and it gets a 9/10
Day 283 - Interpol - 'This Mirror Weighs A Ton'
First time I listened to Interpol, way back in 2002, I recall thinking to myself 'what the fuck is this Joy Division-lite shit?' and dismissing them straight away. But then about a year later this girl I fancied was in love with them, and me, wanting desperately to get into her knickers, gave them another chance, and this time it hit the mark. If I'm honest that ended up being much more lasting than my interest for that girl - hot though she may have been, the amount of bad spelling found in each and every single text I got from her was enough to kill whatever sexual attraction I felt for her. But with their sophomore record, 'Antics', that's where it really, really connected. Songs like 'Narc', Evil', 'Not Even Jail', 'Public Pervert' and 'C'mere' did things for me on an emotional level that very few songs had done in my life, ever. And then the streak continued, with 'Our Love To Admire'. But both 'El Pintor' and 'Interpol' are albums I actually never listened to in full, though some songs from each record I adore absolutely. And 'Marauder' and 'The Other Side Of Make-Believe' I never even heard a single song from. It was like the person I used to be that had the necessary patience to listen to their output had disappeared.
And when this record started playing, it felt somewhat... off. But, of course, it was only a momentary impression, and very soon I started really liking it. As with all previous records, that youthful energy found in their earlier records is mostly gone, but their essence is still there. I found much to enjoy on this one and I'll give a great 8/10
Day 284 - Arcade Fire - 'Pink Elephant'
A year and change ago, in another of my blogs, I challenged myself to write a daily post containing a minimum of 500 words. Initially, I set out to tell the story of my life, hoping that it would fit the duration of the challenge. It didn't, it lasted about half the year, and then I had to come with daily musings and such like. I wrote a lot of stream of consciousness stuff, and did a bunch of 'reviews' on some records that were important to me. Among those, were the first three Arcade Fire records, and then because I'd never listened to them, the rest of their studio discography - excluding soundtracks.
And one of the things I mentioned there is that they are one of those bands where I will always remember where I was when I first listened to them, who I was with, how it felt listening to them, what thoughts crossed my mind as I first listened to them. And both 'Neon Bible' and 'The Suburbs' - though in different ways and in different timings - only deepened my love for them.
And then, as with all these bands, I sort of just stopped paying attention to what they were releasing. In a very real sense, I was profoundly happy with what they had released and I already loved. When I got to know their backlog that was new to me, I actually really loved it. Even though I sort of remembered critical reception not being that great about some of those releases, I didn't find any of them to be lacking, and I reviewed them very positively.
I was aware of this album, but had not yet found it me to give it a try. And it may be that with repeat listens I might just change my mind, but on first impression? It's really not that good.
I realize that this album comes after the acrimonious split between Win and Régine, and it does feel like a plea for forgiveness, and maybe not just from her. From what I could ascertain from the lyrics, they were well written and poignant, as they usually are. But musically it just wasn't up to their standards. In truth, it only contains one single great song - 'I Love Her Shadow', and that one went straight to one of my playlists. It's not terrible, by any means, and it just edges from mediocre to decent. It gets a 5/10
Next week I'll do a sequel to this one, with a twist.
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