. . . but Intimacy felt extremely underdone to me. The basic ideas for the songs are there, but they just weren't thought out well enough to be memorable in my opinion.
I would agree with these two statements. But I do love 'Signs', although, I think it became even better after being tour-tested and played live. The last 3 times I saw them, 'Signs' was definitely one of the highlights of the entire show.
I saw an interview with Matt where he kind of complained how long it took to record
A Weekend In The City and felt they should be able to record and release albums quicker. After
Intimacy, I'd have to strongly disagree with him, and I hope he will rethink that opinion. Even Gordy said (upon the release of
Intimacy) that he worried that some of the songs might be a bit "undercooked" since they hadn't tested them or fleshed them out live, as is Bloc's normal routine.
On a positive note, I was also thinking about this the other day: of some recent, 2000-ish bands, at least Bloc has changed and pushed their limits from album-to-album and not stayed static or redundant. I was thinking of bands that I
really liked their debut albums like Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, Editors, but by all those bands 3rd (or 2nd) albums, they sounded exactly the same as the first and had barely changed their sound at all.
Bloc could not have made 'Mercury' or 'Waiting For The 7:18' or 'Flux' or 'Ion Square' back during
Silent Alarm, so I think the fact that they've expanded their palette and still crank out great songs using all they've learned since
Silent Alarm . . . well, I think that makes them a GREAT band in my mind.