Search - Bloc Party :: Weekend in the City

One of Many versions of this album

dredpirateroberts | Lemon Grove, CA | 10/18/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bloc Party is one of those prolific bands that is constantly writing material. Between albums they write a new song - they release it as a new single. When they go in to write for an album, they write enough material for two albums and then release a constant stream of singles and EPs with unreleased b-sides. As a fan I love this, because they always have something new or something I haven't heard yet.



This is the Japanese (Import) version of their latest full length 'A Weekend In The City'. The cool thing about this version is that it has two Bonus tracks: "We Were Lovers" and "England". Both songs are great and are as good as any of the songs that build up the "core" of this album. "We Were Lovers" starts as a pretty and intricate song that breaks out into a driving rocker about half way through. This follows the pattern of many of the songs on this album - they build to a release. I think this works well. "England" is a more moderate tempoed song that stays mostly constant and has a good catchy riff.



The "core" group of songs that make up this album are the same no matter where it was released. It is a very cohesive album of songs that all fit well together. There are some solid stand out tracks - 'Uniform', 'Song for Clay'; and some great singles - 'Hunting for Witches', 'I Still Remember'.



*I just wanted to make sure to point out that the Bonus Tracks here are different than the ones that came on the Best Buy and the Target Exclusive versions of this album. The Target version contains the Bonus Tracks 'The Once And Future King' and 'Secrets'. These are also really good songs, especially 'The Once And Future King'. 'Emma Kate's Accident' and 'Version 2.0' are on the Best Buy version. I have bought all three of these versions of this album ( and also a number of the singles) so I could get all these great b-sides. I've found about 12 b-side tracks after searching through all the different versions of this album and its accompanying singles!



'A Weekend In The City' is a great sophomore effort from a great (dance-rock?) band. Fans of good music will like this one. Fans of Bloc Party like myself, will enjoy hunting down all the great b-sides. Wikipedia.org has a good breakdown of their discography which will help you find all their hard to find tracks. Also look at some of the international Amazon websites for sinlges and versions that may not be on the U.S. Amazon site. Happy Hunting."