Bloc Party Take Weekend In A Different Direction

Bloc Party's sophomore album, A Weekend In The City, has been on store shelves for more than a month now. More observant listeners (OK, any listeners) will probably have noticed that it doesn't sound a hell of a lot like Silent Alarm.

It boasts a much more bass-heavy sound and less danceable beats, and the London quartet gave their record less pop on purpose, driven away from the sound by the legions of soundalikes who showed up in their wake.

"It kind of got played out, didn't it?" bassist Gordon Moakes says. "I mean, I like hearing those bands that came out at the time, but I think we were just ready to do something different and move on somewhat."

"It just wasn't exciting for us to see these bands coming out in the U.K. that had that similar kind of sound, and the fact that we'd already done it," singer Kele Okereke adds. "We're not really fond of repeating ourselves as a band anyways, so really it's about where we'll go next, that's the exciting thing."

For Bloc Party, the next exciting thing was an 11-track collection of melodic rockers with layered vocals and crashing guitars. It debuted at #12 on the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S., waylaying the group's fears that they'd be forgotten in North America while they stayed at home writing and recording.Well, not exactly home. A Weekend In The City was recorded with Grammy Award-winning producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol) at his studio in Dublin, Ireland. After trying out two other producers, the group were unanimously happy with their decision to go with Lee.

"He was the best, you know?" Moakes says. "There was a difficult period where we were trying to figure out what might work.

"We knew we wanted to try to retain the kind of energy and life and sound of what we'd done, and guitars would be important, but also trying to kind of use programming and electronics. So finding someone who was good at doing both of those was a challenge. And he was, I thought, one of the easiest to get along with, which helps."

The swirling effects and layered production give AWITC a much different aesthetic than Silent Alarm. For the group, it was just one of many things on a shopping list of changes they wanted to make for LP number two.

"Silent Alarm, as a record, I knew it was good, but there are lots of things about it that I would have liked to have changed two years after it," Okereke admits. "I definitely wanted to have a different drum and bass sound to this record than from Silent Alarm.

"I wanted something that didn't necessarily sound like a band, like that boxy sort of sound that's like a band playing in a room, so it's kind of prominent on some of the recordings. I wanted it to sound kind of like almost hyper-real. I wanted the record to sound really exaggerated, not just as four guys playing in a room."

The group are at Toronto's Kool Haus on Sunday and at Montreal's Metropolis on March 27. The Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr. and former Death From Above 1979 member Sebastien Grainger will provide support for both dates. Moakes says Bloc Party particularly look forward to their Toronto show after being a part of Broken Social Scene's Toronto Island festival last summer.

"It was an amazing show, especially watching [BSS]. I went out into the audience and watched their set and it's just incredible, the atmosphere there. It's very infectious as well, that whole scene. You feel like you want to be a part of it. In fact, I think after that we did two or three shows with BSS on the east coast and we met up with them. They came and picked us up and took us to a friend's house where they were having an intimate little barbecue with a few friends, and it really felt like we were amongst friends. And ever since then, we've vowed to meet up whenever we're near Toronto or they're in London."