Finally listened to the album. The Love Within has grown on me, too, in the sense that parts of it have got stuck in my head, but it is an objectively bad song. The synth blasts at halfway through and the end are astonishing. So not Bloc Party. Sounds more like Wow by Kylie Minogue. And then by the ninth song they are so bereft of ideas that they use it again.
The biggest issue is Kele. He's on some Chris Martin-type shit for most of this record. I remember some time again saying that it was Kele who set Bloc Party apart for me, with his vocals. And fitz was like, "it's the band around him that makes them". As in, like, he is made better by the band. Like how Rick Ross is at his best when he's rapping on a Kanye song. His vocals, once so urgent, are just a bore most of the time here. My True Name is the worst offender. My fucking god, what an awful, awful song. I mean the music is pretty okay, but Kele, jesus.
There is some good though. Totally with fitz, Different Drugs is pretty great, the one that caught my attention. Even though it's 99.9% the band, not Kele. The Good News is a straight rip of Beetlebum but as far as Blur ripoffs go (Kele even puts on Albarn affectations) it's a good one, the guitar in the choruses is great. Into the Earth has a bit of old Bloc Party about it. I was disappointed in Exes, I recall liking that older live version better.
The Deputy sent me footage of Bloc Party doing "Heroes" at SXSW and it sounded great.
