Bloc Party
Silent Alarm (Wichita)
There is something terribly 'now' about Bloc Party. The London four-piece are widely touted as the group who will make 2005 their own, having spent 2004 as the music industry name to drop.
They are part of a recently revitalised London live scene and play urgent, needling pop that draws on post punk and uptight electronic music, on bands such as the Cure, PiL, New Order and the Specials. Clever and passionate, their non-manifesto refutes the 'macho promise' that rock'n'roll is sold on, but deal in fast, even aggressive guitar music.
They are more 'nicotine and bacteria' - words from 'Compliments', their debut album's closing song - than 'Cigarettes and Alcohol', Oasis's old rallying cry. So spookily is Bloc Party's finger on the pulse of the time, that their debut album - Silent Alarm - is named after an earthquake warning system.
And yet Silent Alarm brings with it a vague sense of deja vu. This time last year, it was Franz Ferdinand whose time had come, mustering similar influences on their debut album.
Fittingly, it was Franz who gave Bloc Party their first break, a crucial support gig that set the wheels in motion for their succession. Somewhat inevitably, then, this record recalls Franz Ferdinand in pace, tone and reference points; Franz fans impatient for their second album will be grateful for this stop-gap.
But from the first track, 'Like Eating Glass', Bloc Party head off on a subtly different trajectory to the sharp-cheekboned Scots, owing as much to the less cool Cure ('Other Voices', specifically here) as the de rigueur Gang of Four.
They're 'drinking poison' and 'eating glass', their guitars strung with freshly shredded nerves; on 'Helicopter' and 'Banquet', there are low, echoing 'ohs' that recall the Specials's iconic 'Ghost Town', probably more by osmosis than anything else.
Where Franz's art pop tag is accurate, Bloc Party come much genuinely closer to the small-town, small-mind frustrations that incensed the post punks. Although named in playful reference to the block parties in places such as New York that ultimately bred hip hop, Bloc Party are really more about the tension implicit in their loss of the 'k'. It's like the Cold War never quite ended in their edgy music; its echoing tang suggests this album was recorded in a series of deserted underpasses in failed new towns. Silent Alarm even features a song called 'Price of Gas' that faintly invokes the oil crisis of the late Seventies.
Taut and urgent, it's a record that rattles along under its own momentum, only revealing its detailed musicianship and deeper layers after a play or two.
There's barely time for breath until the fifth song, 'Blue Light', when charismatic singer Kele Okereke finally drops his plaintive yowl a couple of octaves for a thoughtful love song, accompanied by a metronomic beat and some gently ebbing guitar.
If there's a shortcoming here, it's that Bloc Party only have two speeds: frenetic and dreamy. And although they do punctuate all the pogo polemics with the odd love song ('So Here We Are' is the best, all starry-eyed and duvet hushed), you need more than two gears to power a career.
But that's a worry for the next album. For now, Bloc Party can enjoy their success and good luck: after all, talent and the Zeitgeist only coincide so fortuitously about once every 12 months.
· To order Silent Alarm for £12.99 with free UK p&p, call the Observer Music Service on 0870 836 0713
