Bloc Party Is Not So Silent
Silent Alarm, (Wichita, 2005)
By R.J.F.
I’m driving home from a week of camping at Jalama Beach, my tan hands gripping the wheel, and I’m blasting “Banquet” by Bloc Party off of their album, Silent Alarm. Passing through Santa Barbara, the beach air still filling my lungs, I couldn’t help but feel like it was the perfect song to play at almost full volume. With its thumping bass drum kicking the speakers around, and it’s rhythm guitar keeping the pace going. It was a fucking jam to speed down the highway to.
Bloc Party came into my world via “Banquet”. The song was popular and catchy enough to be played on mainstream radio, and because of this, I bought the CD. The song segues from a fairly simplistic, rhythmic start into a track that one could easily dance to in an alternative club, whatever that means. The mixture of the rhythm guitar and the consistent drumbeat keeps shoes tapping and heads bobbing. Obviously, “Banquet” was the first song that I heard off of this album, but after listening to the entire thing, I was pretty taken with Bloc Party.
“Eating Glass”, the first track on Silent Alarm, is an excellent opener. It sets the tone for the entire album. The rhythm guitar, which seems to be a staple for the band, quickly brings the listener into the song. Then, the ecstatic drumming takes the wheel; it’s all snare and hat. If you were to play this song as loud as possible, you would be able to feel the pounding of the drums in your chest. This is how ferociously former drummer Matt Tong plays. Finally, lead singer Kele steps up to the mic, and the anticipation is over. This was the perfect song to set up the entire album.
Most of the songs on the album are quite quick, but “Blue Light” slows down the pace. It is a subtle breakup song, or rather, a song about the longing for someone that you are no longer with. At first listen, it might sound like a love song because of how gentle the track is in comparison to the other songs. The repetition of the line “You are the bluest light” at the end also gives a deceptive impression that it’s a love song, but if you listen to the beginning, it brings a more detailed picture as to what it’s really about. I think that the feeling of hoping your lost love is in just as much misery as you are is universal when Kele sings:
I still feel you in the taste of cigarettes
What could I ever run to
Just tell me it’s tearing you apart
Just tell me you cannot sleep
Honorable mention goes to “This Modern Love”. I just like this song because it’s what the title says it is: a modern song about love. There are no lyrics about holding hands, or kissing in the rain, or whatever else we’ve become accustomed to with love songs. Most of the lyrics have to do with overcoming some kind of shyness that the subject of the song is experiencing when trying to spend time with their romantic interest. Bloc Party has this habit of repeating lyrics towards the end of their songs in order to bring emphasis to the main point. I think that the line “Do you want to come over and kill some time” being sung over and over again is a perfect ending for this one since many modern romances are two people just hanging out and killing time together.
When I re-listen to this album, I’m happy that it holds up all of these years later. It kind of says something about a band when they make an album that, when listened to many years after its release, can feel nostalgic, but can also still make you bop along to the beat. I kind of miss this era of alternative music, and I wish that I could go back in time and discover it again.
