Bloc Party wanted to create an album that further distanced the band from the traditional rock set-up by incorporating more electronic elements and unconventional musical arrangements.

Bloc Party's second album A Weekend in the City, released in 2007, allowed the quartet to evolve sonically by including more electronically processed soundscapes,[1] but the band members were not entirely comfortable with more daring musical arrangements when making the record.

[7] Paul Epworth and Jacknife Lee—from Bloc Party's previous albums, Silent Alarm and A Weekend in the City, respectively—returned to the production staff for Intimacy, because the band members felt that they had "unfinished business" with both.

[7] Epworth focused on capturing the dynamic of a live band by working on fully developed songs and emphasising the rhythm section in the mix.

[5] According to Okereke, Bloc Party wanted to make something as stylised as R&B or electronica,[12] combining the rawness of Silent Alarm and the recording experience gained from A Weekend in the City.

[6] Drum machines and distorted guitars were used more extensively than in Bloc Party's previous works to create a sense of manipulation to the basic rock palette.

[12] Drummer Matt Tong was initially sceptical of moulding songs with programmed drums, as opposed to using his physical output, but agreed to the idea when the band recorded some of the tracks in their entirety.

[5] The lyrics in the chorus of "Ion Square", the last track on the original download release, are based on E. E. Cummings' poem "I Carry Your Heart with Me".

[4] For the opening track on Intimacy, "Ares", Okereke was inspired to rap his lyrics after listening to the old-school hip hop of Afrika Bambaataa.

[7] According to Heather Phares of AllMusic, the song includes siren-like guitar chords and loud, complex drumming in the vein of dance acts The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers.

[22] The track is an attempt at drum and bass and features brass dissonance,[7][22] effects Okereke has called "harsh, glacial, layered and energetic".

[6] "Signs" is the only song that does not include guitars;[22] instead, it is made up of a synthesiser pulse and multitracked samples of glockenspiel and mbira resembling the work of minimalist composer Steve Reich.

[7] Okereke has conceded that Intimacy covers Bloc Party's typical indie rock elements,[8] but noted that the guitars have an artificial and manipulated sound, "almost like all the humanity has been bleached out".

[22] According to Nick Southall of Drowned in Sound, "Better Than Heaven" encapsulates what Bloc Party had been trying to achieve in their previous works, "namely aligning all their different directional desires: to swoon, to rock, and to experiment all at once".

[25] Steven Robertshaw of Alternative Press described the album as arguably Bloc Party's finest career moment and noted that it offers "sweat and circuitry, savagery and submission, and a captivating energy that's severely lacking in many music scenes on the planet".

[11] Kyle Anderson of Rolling Stone claimed that by "replacing Bloc Party's distant cool with vivid honesty, Okereke makes Intimacy a confident new peak for his band",[26] while PopMatters' Ross Langager explained that the record "might not actually be all that intimate, but it is a thing of rough, recycled beauty".

[27] Adam Mazmanian of The Washington Times commented that the album's final mix showed that producers Epworth and Lee preserved the essence of Bloc Party's signature sound—"minor key rock thrumming with rhythmic intensity"—while taking the band in new musical directions.

[30] Josh Modell of Spin felt that Intimacy sometimes gets "sonically or lyrically precarious",[31] while John Robinson of Uncut commented that "there's an air of slightly hedged bets".

[32] Drowned in Sound's Nick Southall claimed that the record is not quite the radical statement Bloc Party set out to achieve, but concluded that it is "definitely a little bit of invigorating redemption at a time when doubts were beginning to cloud what was, initially, a flawless reputation".

[24] In its year-end music review for 2008, Under the Radar stated about the band members, "They are so solid and so confident that it seems inevitable that they will get many chances to slowly drift into more daring lands.