Quick Before it Melts

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Defining a Decade: Bloc Party Silent Alarm (2005)

Mid-way through “Positive Tension” Kele Okerele passionately sings “Something glorious is about to happen/a reckoning!” and I’ve often wondered if he knew that the reckoning he was prophetically summoning was the arrival of Silent Alarm, his band’s polarizing debut album. In 2004, indie rock was embracing a new movement. It would go by many names, but the formula was the same: a hybrid genre that combined the snarl and stomp of punk with the rhythm and repetition of dance. Sleek, military-inspired haircuts and dress codes were de rigueur, and band names that alluded to assassinated Austrian archdukes were au courant. At the time, I was extremely guilty of overusing “angular” as a descriptor for bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads (I still think it’s justifiable, though), but Bloc Party just wouldn’t fit into that mold. By the time Silent Alarm arrived on Valentine’s Day, 2005, they had clearly broken ranks with their dance-punk peers and started marching to the beat of their own drummer.

From the not-so-silent-alarm-like intimation that opens “Like Eating Glass,” Bloc Party were giving the world notice that they had arrived, and they had something to say. The tight, propulsive percussion of dance-punk was still there, but so was a grander, anthemic sound, equally concerned with atmospheric flourishes as bold proclamations. Each got their fair share of outings on Silent Alarm: the ballads like “So Here We Are” showcased the band’s ability to make melody marry emotions, while “Price Of Gasoline” is a relentless attack that does away with the soft touch and hits hard and hits often.

Where his contemporaries were more comfortable singing about going out, Kele Okerele was more interested in staying in, and looking in on oneself (hence the “new Morrissey” label). He’d eventually head out for a night on the town on their sophomore LP, A Weekend in the City, but even then it was more about the hells of over-indulgence than the joys of club life. Though some may find his voice an acquired taste, his lyrical voice is perhaps the most under-appreciated part of the Bloc Party platform. Okerele is anything but a silent observer of what’s going on around him, and his passions and emotions infuse Silent Alarm (and all of Bloc Party’s work) with intensity.

I remember that initially, I would fixate on individual tracks at a time, playing them over and over again. First it was “This Modern Love”, then “Banquet”, and eventually “Like Eating Glass.” That’s when I realized that, as a whole, the album was actually greater than the sum of its parts. As much as I love “Banquet” and “So Here We Are”, I love Silent Alarm more. Paul Epworth’s production is peerless, the songs are fraught with fire and fervency, and it took the hybrid genre of dance-punk to the next evolutionary level: it already had the beat, but thanks to Bloc Party, now it had a heart.

MP3: Bloc Party “So Here We Are”
Myspace: Bloc Party

by J. Di Gioia | 3 Comments »

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