Track Listing

1. The Prayer
2. We Were Lovers
3. The Prayer (Phones Metal Jackin' Mix)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101818 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Single

Customer Reviews

A New Era for Bloc
Crunk.
Crunk?
Crunk!
Crunk is the word that lead singer of Bloc Party Kele Okereke uses to describe new single "The Prayer". It's a couple of months until the album comes out, but this "crunk" song is a great taster of what's to come once "A Weekend In The City" is available to buy at your local Fopp.
But about the song.
Hypnotic humming, faced paced drums, psychotic verses, this is what many people wanted Bloc Party to produce for a next single. "The Prayer" is a great work from the band, it's a single that's so well produced, that after each listen, you have to turn the volume up that little bit more. Okereke sings "Lord give me grace/ And dancing feet/ And the power to impress". It's a self indulgent song, but one that is so well written by Kele, it works on so many different levels.
But there is a negative. The chorus. It's not instantly memorable, and it took me around 5 listens to be able to remember the chorus without having to listen to the song again, and the lyrics are a bit cheesy too. The verses are some of the best that the band have ever written, but there's a certain amount of quality lacking in the chorus, and it lets the song down.
Nevertheless, it's a song that will do well in the charts, and it's a song that shows that Bloc Party still have what it takes to be remembered as one of the best UK bands in the last decade.

Genius
The influences may be obvious but at least they're good-i'll take a band
influenced by The Comsat Angels,The Sound,Gang Of Four,etc over people like
Razorlight or The Ordinary Boys who are duuuuulllll.The production,courtesy
of Jacknife Lee,is excellent-it sounds great on headphones,but is also a
classic example of an 'icerink record'-it also sounds great played very LOUD.
Indeed,for me this is one of the best singles of 2007 thus far-along with
'Golden Skans'by Klaxons,'That Boy That Girl' by Hadouken!,'Alfie'by Lily
Allen(sorry but it's true),'Giddy Stratospheres'by The Long Blondes,and
dozens more come December.In the meantime,though:five stars by far.

very good but....
being over 40 and just having heard this on R1 I was amazed at how similar this is to the (under-rated) sound of the Comsat Angels circa 81/82. Also agree with the consensus that they sound just like early XTC/Gang of Four. Having heard some guy from the Klaxons bigging up John Foxx I guess the (obscure) early eighties are back in vogue!!! Or more likely the current crop of new bands are composed of the offspring or nieces and nephews of early-80's musos.