It's not supporting a new album but Bloc Party are back with another single release, "Mercury." In the spirit of their last single, "Flux," people are going to find this entirely unsettling. It's not quite the club banger that "Flux" briefly turned into but it dips in the same unregulated, electronic meat locker. Frontman Kele Okereke wrote "The Prayer" and just kept on going. Nothing is off-limits. What does this mean for their next record? Are we watching artistic growth or the kitchen sink being thrown into ProTools? Take a listen:
It's fated and battle cry all at once. When a planet goes in retrograde motion it is thought to astrologically predict certain events. The video, an obvious political allegory, seems to indicate the Western political system (read: ours, George Bush2, etc.) is completely and totally fucked. Is our president a lobster-clawed, Frankenstein creation? Bloc Party thinks so. It's hard to argue. As unsettling string-flourishes lifted right out of The Matrix burn in the background, Kele says, "you can be part of the war/from Silverlake to Williamsburg." He's calling the hip-set to conflict. And he's not done. The last meaningful lyrics are "this could be the start of something truly real/but all I could say was 'hey, hey, hey.'" It's a possible reference to "She's Hearing Voices," a song off the first Bloc Party record where Kele famously squeeks, "hey, hey, hey." It's damning and it's self-aware and by the fifth listen, "my Mercury's in retrograde" will be firmly in your head. It's just fate.
2 comments:
i adore bloc party, but i just can't get with this one yet. i know sometimes first listen weird turns into fourth listen love, but usually i fall for bp in 30 seconds or less so either they've changed or i have.
I must be the odd ball because everyone I've read doesn't like this song although it's one of my favorites. Most of the songs on Intimacy are good but so melancholy. This song has some feeling. Maybe its because I'm a drummer though I love Matt's drum beat. Plus I think the political commentary is great especially with the shit storm we're in right now in the U.S.
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