Intimacy

Bloc Party

In celebration of Pride Month, the albums featured during the month of June will feature LGBTQ+ artists. Please support LGBTQ+ creators.

Bloc Party's Intimacy for some reason has resonated with me in a much more meaningful way then the rest of their records. Despite leaning in a more electronic direction, many moments on this record feel incredibly visceral; like a good rock record should. Lyrically, this album is pretty much what you'd expect from a record titled Intimacy, a record about love and relationships. I know, how groundbreaking. All jokes aside, I think this record is unique since vocalist, Kele Okereke, approaches love and relationships from a different perspective or stage in each song. Navigating new love, dealing with jealous feelings, suspecting your partner of infidelity, and recovering from lost love are all themes that I have been able to identify.

The album kicks off with Ares; quite possibly my favourite 'fight' song ever conceived. The tremolo picked guitar pitches up and down like a siren which immediately gives the song a sense of urgency and I absolutely love the drum beat which they have given quite a bit of room. Okereke raps these energetic and confrontational lines in the verses while his pitch shifted wails in other parts serve to make this track even more uncomfortable. The following track Mercury goes into even stranger territory, beginning with a chopped and manipulated vocal sample delivered by Okereke. This track also has some synthesized horns that sound quite sinister all throughout the track, eventually reaching insanity levels that are reminiscent of that black midi record I had just checked out. The beat once again stands out to me here as the kick drums really punch in the mix.

Signs is a very somber moment on the record. It's kinda whimsical with the two tuned percussion instruments chiming away, but once the rest of the instrumentation and Okereke's voice comes in, the tone becomes much more depressive. In the song, Okereke is dealing with the death of a lover (potentially from suicide) and is trying to come to terms with their absence. Lines like "I can sleep forever these days, cause in my dream I see you again" really break my heart as it illustrates the destruction of one's life after experiencing the loss of another. The heartbreak continues as Okereke refuses to come to terms with this loss and expresses hopefulness that they will come back. The instrumentation drops out leaving the whimsical, tuned percussion, suggesting that there may in fact still be hope. However, we all know that's not the way this works.

There are other emotionally painful moments on this record, but the final song on the record, Ion Square, is perhaps the only true depiction of joy and happiness. On this track, we experience true love. Not the kind of love that reaches a stagnant point, but a love that continuously expands and swells. This song emulates that instrumentally as more and more harmonious layers are added. By the end, we reach truly blissful territory; a firework finish.