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80Boldness has its own reward in the big grime beats, tension-filled horns and cold self-loathing of Mercury. [Nov 2008, p.104]
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Intimacy is arguably Bloc Party's finest moment thus far, offering sweat and circuitry, savagery and submission, and a captivating energy that's severely lacking in many music scenes on the planet. [Dec 2008, p.144]
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80Brave, individual and heartfelt, Intimacy offers treasure for fans old and new.
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80Intimacy is the English dance-punk outfit's most urgent-sounding effort yet, and frontman Kele Okereke and his bandmates probably couldn't bear the thought of waiting two or three months for it to be heard.
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At times the music, like the lyrics, does illuminate the problem of a band taking itself too seriously. But Bloc Party has always favored drama, and there's plenty of precedent for overblown sentiment when it comes to pop and broken hearts.
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Despite their third album's title, however, they largely focus here on frantic postpunk aggression that's not necessarily bad, it just isn't what they do best.
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This vicious playfulness extends to the music as well, which trims off the magisterial excesses of "Weekend" while keeping the band's recent noisy electronica crush intact.
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70Rushed it may have been, but here Bloc Party seem to accurately reflect post-relationship blues: confused, introspective and stung.
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They are so solid and so confident that it seems inevitable that they will get many chances to slowly drift into more daring lands. But without more risk, they may be destined to make albums like Intimacy--accomplished and intriguing, but not life changing, not classic. [Year End 2008]
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Intimacy is not quite the radical statement its makers might think it is (I'm not sure what could be given the group's evident ambitions), but it's definitely a little bit of invigorating redemption at a time when doubts were beginning to cloud what was, initially, a flawless reputation.
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70Intimacy offers the most ideas that Bloc Party has ever put on display. Skip the first two tracks and you'll find more hits than misses.
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At times, Intimacy feels rushed and predictable, and at others, it's almost painfully ambitious.
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Replacing Bloc Party's distant cool with vivid honesty, Okereke makes Intimacy a confident new peak for his band.
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70Released on the web fully two months before it hits record stores, Bloc Party's third album is as gleaming and hermetically sealed as one of Kubrick's monoliths.
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70Intimacy might not actually be all that intimate, but it is a thing of rough, recycled beauty. And if that isn't worth getting beat up for, I don't know what is.
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On Intimacy his ambition often outpaces the execution.
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60In truth, though, there's not too much here to alarm the undergraduate population.
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60Here, they simply sound jittery, putting romantic complaints to studio-worked music that's oddly brisk and busy, with a dissonance that drowns out the emotion. [Nov 2008, p.73]
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60Bloc Party remain a band with the greatness they seek still hovering somewhere on the horizons. [Nov 2008, p.112]
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60Even as Intimacy gets sonically or lyrically precarious--'Zephyrus' recalls 'Jesus Walks,' for Christ's sake--it does so while reaching hard toward something exhilarating.
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Bloc Party disavows their history and start at a musical Year Zero. But the band hasn't adequately replaced their former selves to justify jettisoning their pervious strengths.
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60The rewards are there--it just takes some work.
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Brave, but forgettable.
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58While Okereke has described Intimacy as a break-up album, it feels like more of a document of a band disconnected from itself.
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50Intimacy, as an album, is hit-or-miss.
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Bloc Party has a lot of ideas on Intimacy, but the band should have given itself more time to figure them out.
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40At its best Intimacy is taut and claustrophobic or movingly sentimental, but for the main part it is repetitious and bafflingly poorly realised, especially given that they could have had an extra six months to work on it.
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