Reading all this Bonnaroo talk has me feeling a bit antsy for my own incredible festival. While ACL rarely lives up to the behemoths that are Bonnaroo and Coachella, it is about 15 minutes away from my house. So that’s pretty cool.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to give the first of many festival previews by profiling a band everyone’s already heard of (but who also happen to be one of my all-time faves), Bloc Party. Their recent album was greeted with slightly less fanfare than their first (epic) album, but seriously, how could they possibly have lived up to Silent Alarm? I would argue that it wasn’t physically possible. Regardless, A Weekend in the City has more than its share of replayability (is that a word?), and some of the songs downright rock when played live. I know this because I caught them at Stubb’s (by myself) during SXSW. It seems that Kele and the gang really like Austin, because they keep on coming back. They’ll be back to play the ACL Festival this year (they destroyed the stage and my eardrums two years ago), and they’re at the top of my list of shows I can’t miss.

If for some reason you’ve never listened to them, or if you read all the reviews of A Weekend in the City and decided you didn’t like it, here are my two faves from the new CD.

One band down, 129 to go…