The release of Intimacy, Bloc Party?s latest studio effort, may lack the hype that surrounded the band?s first two albums, but the fans are still anticipating the raw energy and tight songwriting that has set Bloc Party apart from their English indie peers during the last half decade.
"It's a shame about Ray," sings Evan Dando on the title track of The Lemonheads' 1992 breakthrough album -- but the real shame would be if the band's legacy turned out to be marked by their instantly catchy but eventually irritating cover "Mrs. Robinson." It's a Shame About Ray didn't gain much chart traction until it was reissued with their pop-punk version of the Simon & Garfunkel song tacked on to it.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher, in an attempt to explain to the class a pun on the word "knowledge" in a poem we were studying, told us that a certain verb too obscene to print outright in this article was originally an acronym for "for unlawful carnal knowledge." This must have been one tidbit in his "fun facts" arsenal, the kind we all keep in our mental back pockets for impressing others with our scraps of erudition. The problem, as anyone with access to a dictionary, snopes.com or a healthy allotment of common sense knows, is that this "fun fact" is completely preposterous.
Though Hot Chip has spent the past five or so years creating a distinctive sound, one where techno blips, disco beats and smooth vocals are combined skillfully, their previous releases have suffered from monotony.
