Bloc Party worked to craft an album that distanced them from the conventional guitar band set-up by incorporating more electronically processed beats and additional instrumentation.

Reviewers generally treated A Weekend in the City as an important stepping stone for the band members in their quest for musical maturity, while The Guardian included it in its list of the "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die".

All band members of Bloc Party conceived A Weekend in the City during 2005 while on tour in support of their critically acclaimed debut album Silent Alarm.

[6] They selected Lee—who had worked with world-renowned act U2 and indie rock band Snow Patrol—based on the rapport that developed between the two parties while recording the demo song "I Still Remember", which later appeared in A Weekend in the City.

[2] Moakes has explained the choice of producer by stating that the band members were looking to work with someone who could help them craft an accomplished album, "although as much as anything it's about finding someone who you'd want to spend six weeks in an enclosed space with".

[7] Before the studio sessions, Bloc Party listened to varied musical sources, from composers Philip Glass, György Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki to urban artists Amerie and Missy Elliott.

A makeshift booth was built around the back of the drum kit to reduce any sonic interference, while a roof was sometimes used over drummer Matt Tong to isolate a pure sound.

McFall has pointed out that distorted and heavily compressed mics were used to capture some of the room's ambience "to add a bit of grit" to the instrumental tracks; the recordings were often processed further using distressors,[2] special types of compressor noted for their distinctively aggressive sound.

[12] Lee added the live string, synth, drum machine, sample, and ambient noise tracks to create an expansive, hyper-stereophonic final product.

Okereke later returned to Lee's studio to add the vocal tracks to the album;[13] he has noted that he tried to "convey range and dynamics" rather than simply yelp the lyrics.

[17] Journalists who obtained an official copy of the album's final mix suggested that it featured electronically tampered rock soundscapes in the vein of Radiohead, New Order, and Björk.

[19] Bloc Party previewed A Weekend in the City in its entirety on 24 January 2007 at the Bournemouth Old Firestation,[20] a performance which coincided with the Japanese release of the album.

[22] The band performed at a special BBC Radio 1 showcase at Maida Vale Studios on 30 January as a precursor to a February promotional tour of the UK.

[28][29] BBC's Tom Young concluded, "Some will appreciate Kele's openness and revel in his philosophical focus on modern lives ... others will be too distracted by questionable content such as ... lines about sudoku to take Okereke's grumbles into consideration.

[31] Populist media is also the target of "Hunting for Witches" (with the right-wing tabloid Daily Mail being singled out for criticism), whose subject matter is terrorism, namely the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

"[16] Two songs, "Kreuzberg" and "I Still Remember", explore sexuality and homosexuality; the former is an account of promiscuity in the Berlin area of the same name, while the latter details an unrequited crush of a boy for his schoolmate.

The song title references the protagonist Clay and a billboard in the book which displays the phrase "Disappear Here", while the action is relocated to Les Trois Garçons restaurant in Shoreditch, East London.

[1] The opening section of "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)" includes a bare falsetto,[34] while "Hunting for Witches" starts with a John Cage-like collage of spliced voices from random radio broadcasts as its main rhythm.

[34] Moakes has pointed out that the original sound check of "Waiting for the 7.18" was a ballad with a simple rhythmic pattern on the glockenspiel before the band members added a drum and bass section to its second half.

[9] "Kreuzberg", "I Still Remember", and "Sunday" are the few songs to provide a counterpoint to the musical manipulation on the rest of the album by having more conventional indie rock arrangements;[34] Moakes has called the compositions "lush, without being too syrupy".

[34] Media response to A Weekend in the City was mixed, but generally positive; aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalised rating of 65/100 based on 30 critical reviews.

[36] Louis Pattison of NME described the album as "tender and reflective, edgy and embittered; a difficult and emotional beast that jolts with nervous electricity" and pointed out that its notable achievement is that it finds moments of genuine contentment amidst "a maelstrom of anger and confusion".

[37] Allmusic's Heather Phares did not find the album as immediate as Bloc Party's earlier work, but noted that "its gradual move from alienation to connection and hope is just as bold as Silent Alarm, and possibly even more resonant".

[28] Drowned in Sound's Mike Diver called it "dirty, dishevelled, unsure and paranoid; fearful, easily distracted, boisterous and ashamed; reckless, wild, nervous and terrified; graceful, thought-provoking, clumsy and contradictory ... and very nearly perfect.

"[40] Robert Christgau, reviewing for Rolling Stone, suggested that the album fails because it lacks "killer choruses",[41] while Sia Michel of The New York Times wrote that the multitracked vocals and baroque effects do not have "the wiry catchiness" of Bloc Party's previous work.

[48] The Guardian included A Weekend in the City in its "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die" list compiled in November 2007 and praised the band's "ambitious indie soundscapes packing a sizeable political punch".

[22] Bloc Party started a lengthy promotional world tour for A Weekend in the City in March 2007, which included concerts in Japan, the US—where they also headlined at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas—Canada, and Italy.

[61][62] The band performed at the main stages of several European summer fests, including Glastonbury, T in the Park, the Reading and Leeds Festivals, Oxegen, and Summercase.