Bloc Party - A New CD Worth Your Ten Bucks

To paraphrase and borrow my good friend Matt Dentler's concept, here's a new cd completely worth every penny: Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City.

I've been listening to this almost non-stop since I, erm, obtained it on January 12th. (Don't worry, I'll buy a copy when it's released!) main songwriter Kele Okereke's song writing has matured from their stellar debut, Silent Alarm. Tackling such "light" themes such as post 9/11 racism in Britain, teenage homosexuality, anonymous gay sex in East Berlin, suicide and the seductiveness of drug use, Okereke is clearly entering a more personal territory on this sophomore release that doesn't come near the dreaded "slump."

Whether or not Okereke is gay was something that was intentionally ignored during the release of their first CD Silent Alarm but it's something he feels like he has to address this go 'round. "'With the first album I didn't think it was essential to the experience,'" Okereke tells the UK newspaper The Guardian., continuing, "'I didn't want to have to talk about it in a tabloid way. It wasn't there in the songs, so why did people need to know? But yeah, there are songs on this record that do feel like they're about desire, longing. So yeah,' he concludes, 'I am gonna talk about that.'"