Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Bloc PartyBrand: BLOC PARTY
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-03-22
Music Label: Vice Records
Soundtracks:
- Like Eating Glass
- Helicopter
- Positive Tension
- Banquet
- Blue Light
- She's Hearing Voices
- This Modern Love
- Pioneers
- Price of Gasoline
- Little Thoughts (bonus track)
- So Here We Are
- Luno
- Plans
- Compliments
Free Music Notes for Silent Alarm
Free Music Review: Best album for years
Hit: 5 Stars
For my money, this is the best album i've heard for years. Not since Urban Hymns has an album had roughly 5 songs which I would praise to high heavens. I'd place Silent Alarm with Urban Hymns and What's The Story Morning Glory, in my favourite albums. An individual song break down:
Like Eating Glass 3/5 - Starting the album off, I think unwisely, as I think it's one of the tamer songs on the disc. However, I still think this song is good. This shows the quality it's up against, as the next 7 songs could each be a hit in their own right. It's an interesting song, and it does get better with each listen. Slow and soft compared to the high tempo songs which follow. This particular song.
Helicopter 5/5 - Probably one of the bests song on the album, and probably one of the best songs I've heard in a while. Probably the catchiest opening guitar work for a song in ages, and probably the best political indie song. Great lyrics, referring to George Bush and the war in Iraq. If that doesn't interest you, the fantastic guit-age should, and the passionate vocals of Kele Okereke demand that this song should be played LOUD.
Positive Tension 5/5 - A personal favourite, typically good drumming leads the song in. I love the lyrics in this one, they sum up the material world, and the trappings of fame. Another song to be played loud. This song really comes into its own towards the end, great guitar work and great lyrics and vocals from Kele. If you listen to this, and don't shout out *that* line near the end, you have no soul!
Banquet 5/5 - The first Bloc Party song I heard.When I first heard the album, this was the song that jumped out at me. It was fresh, and as I'd come to find out was typical of the band, had great and perfectly timed instrumental sections. However, when Kele launches in with his lyrics... well. Not only does he sing them absolutely brilliantly, hitting the high notes, they are lyrically tight. It's about a girl losing her innocence, through sex. As one reviewer of this song said, somewhere, "could this song be a little bit cooler? NO!" which pretty much sums it up. I know every word of this song, and i'm proud to. I'd say this judge nudges out Helicopter, This Modern Love and Positive Tension for #1 song. Can't forget to mention the opening "Ba-dum" vocals, classic. It's the most played on my iTunes, that's a fact.
Blue Light 4/5 - A break from the quick, aggressive nature of the preceding three songs. This really is lovely, slow with meaningful lyrics. How many times have you had to tell yourself, "If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is"? A better than ordinary song dealing with ordinary issues (problems with 'er upstairs)
She's Hearing Voices - Fast paced song, keeps the tempo up with good drumming. Typically good vocals from Kele, and an interesting "hey, hey!" repeat in the background, which hooks you. As usual, a great chorus and good guitar work. 4/5.
This Modern Love 5/5 - Imagine the drum ladened Banquet, but replace it with (equally great) soft guitar. Quiet and soft, it goes great with the restrained vocals. Again, they deal with relationship issues. Unrequieted love, common place these days (hence the title) is treated with the utmost sincerity, Kele having the humility to say "This Modern Love breaks me, this Modern Love wastes me". It's reminiscent to a childhood crush, with the line "Do you want to come over and kill some time?". Once you hear this song, you will want to listen to it again and again due to it playing so easily on your ears.
Pioneers 4/5 - One of the songs released as a single I believe (Banquet, This Modern Love, Helicopter and So Here We Are are the others... I think). At first, I didn't really like this song. I don't know why. I think it might have something do with the lyrics. At first they may appear a tad random, but upon listening again, I noticed the political nature of them. It's all about America (and its allies) trying to "tame" the world, in their own image. It's telling us to calm down. Towards the end of this song are absolutely fantastic lyrics. I won't post them all, but I think this will do... "So here we are reinventing the wheel, I'm shaking hands with a hurricane, It's a colour that I can't describe, It's a language I can't understand". Perfect phrasing of the politcal situation, of 'us' wading into things we dont understand, trying to change everything. Such great lyrics (also sung to a tee) really make me want to give this song a 5/5, but the other songs have more ambitious/impressive instrument work.
Price Of Gas 4/5 - Topical to say the least. Again, the lyrics are political in their meaning. The materialism of the western world has evolved into the consumer innocently demanding more and more ("I've never hurt anybody"), which leads to more money into the western economy, and more resource rape in poorer countries. The line "We're going to win this With spades and truncheons, guns and trowels" shows how for all the money and technology in the world, wars will be won with spades, truncheons, guns and trowels... Also, don't miss the "Is that a fact?!" line by Kele, again, superb.
So Here We Are 4/5 - Slow and haunting, I think this is the one they played at the Mercury music awards. It's to do with a relationship, unclear as to what, although people have said it's one with ecstasy. This song is really made by the vocals, which are perfect. Put this song on when you need to contemplate on the meaning of life, or some shiznay.
Luno 4/5 - Fast paced, great opening both musically, lyrically and vocally. "And you're tired of your face and you're tired of your nose [they've] got you jumping through hoops shaving your legs". About the suppression of youth and how you have to conform to everyone's expected standard. It deals with teenage rebellion, which shows that Bloc Party sing about everything from US Politics to 14 year old girls wearing nothing but black. Definitely a sleeper hit, gets better every time you listen. Is spaced apart from the other fantastic songs on the album (near the top...) but still, angry and fast.
Plans 4/5 - Slow song, quite haunting, in topic and lyrics. It's about following your dreams, getting off your arse and doing what you want to do. It's quite a depressing song if you're in that sort of mood, as it deals with how life becomes complicated and as you get older, you become more self centred and you have to try and juggle that with friends and *plans* with them. Bascally, if you're a hippy layabout, you're gonna get left behind in the rat-race.
Compliments 4/5 - 'Chilling' and 'haunting' best describe this song. Extremely slow, it's more of a statement (or a plea...) than a song. It's about how, like in Plans, you can waste your life away with vices (such as smoking, "Nicotine and bacteria"). The opening lines, "We sit and we sigh And nothing gets done, So right, so clued-up, We just get old" truly are scary, as they reference a growing problem: Young people doing nothing with their lives, as although they believe they are smart and able, they waste their lives away through lack of drive. Definitely a problem of the younger generation that they have noticed, and as I said before, it seems more like a plea to us all to not waste away life like this.
The whole album seems to have the message that you should get out there and do something, whether it to be just in your own life, or in the worldwide view, such as politics.
Silent Alarm Poster
Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years 1976 and the present day. They eventually concluded that their own attempts to imitate what had informed them could be innovative and fresh.Styled more along the lines of a revolutionary cell than a band, Bloc Party approach the medium of rock'n'roll with the sort of high seriousness usually reserved for philosophy lectures. Yet on Silent Alarm, this "autonomous unit" of smart, wiry London youth don't just succeed in reinvigorating the artform--they come pretty close to reinventing it from the ground up. Whereas early singles like "She's Hearing Voices" found the band still attempting to chisel their own image out of familiar post-punk reference points--The Fall, Joy Division, and Gang Of Four, to name but three--newer tracks such as "Like Eating Glass" and the prickly "Price Of Gas" find Bloc Party pioneering a freshly-minted template of staccato percussion, expansive soundscapes, and cryptic lyrics that artfully straddle the political and the personal. Russell Lissack has forsaken that overdone hallmark of post-punk, brittle tortured-fretboard skronk, in favor of an effects-laden guitar sound that adds genuine prettiness to Bloc Party's edgy rush. But it's Kele Okereke's vocal that's the band's most flexible facet, morphing from frothing anger to breathless desperation. "Are you hoping for a miracle?" he bays, on "Helicopter". Yes? Well Silent Alarm ably fits the bill. --Louis Pattison
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