Album: Bloc Party, Intimacy (Wichita)

In the new digital-download world of pop, things arrive more suddenly, but they also depart with alarming speed, too.

"Mercury", the first single from Bloc Party's third album, was heralded by a three-day countdown on the band's website which underwhelmingly led to a radio broadcast, rather than a download; it subsequently scraped into the Top 20, and only after becoming physically available. Intimacy has now been issued as a download, with a CD version available in two months, when the last ripples of marketing momentum will surely have disappeared.

What exactly do they expect to happen? Is this some form of indie-cred commercial suicide, or just an ego-fuelled misjudgement of their own drawing power? Either way, it's a fitting fate for a turgid album jerry-built from standard indie guitar-rock angst and a half-hearted appropriation of hip-hop and dance modes, assembled with scant musical logic and little focus. The best bit is the great big-beat drum-track to "Ares"; but it was great when the Chemical Brothers used it on "Setting Sun".

Pick of the album:'Ares', 'Signs'