Favourite Album: Bloc Party, Silent Alarm

We all get them, those weird tingly moments when something about a song ticks all the right boxes - when it stops you dead and forces you to listen, to drink it in deep and savour it.  Well, that’s what I get every single time I hear ‘Like Eating Glass’, the opening track to Silent Alarm, my favourite album and, I would argue, one of the best albums of the last decade.  The band might have sullied their reputation somewhat with ill judged forays into dance in their later releases, but their debut album remains, much like Is This It, a musical landmark, both for myself and the world of ‘indie’ in general.

Sorry, that really is one hell of a pretentious an opening paragraph – I’m not really used to writing blogs like this so and have yet to develop a particular STYLE, so this might be a bit rambling and loose, for which I apologise.  I guess the difficulty comes from being asked to explain why a particular album is your favourite - what it is about it that makes it the one you reach for when at a loss for what to listen to, safe in the knowledge that you’ll enjoy it and take something from it each and every time, despite your mood or circumstance.  Music, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is such a deeply personal thing that it seems a bit distasteful to write about it in this way, especially as it’s an album I’ve grown up with (oh the stories it could tell, if it, you know, had eyes, and a mouth…which would be weird)

So why Silent Alarm? There will almost certainly be some reading this who detest the band, deriding them as Gang of Four knock-offs partly responsible for the strangehold that wiry, angular guitar music had on the ‘indie’ scenes in the mid Noughties (god what a horrible word – is that really what we’re going for now? ) But to think of the album in that light would do it a great disservice, as it is for my money one of the most assured, powerful and breathtaking debut albums ever made, although quite why I think that is hard to explain.  Much like Mr. Tume, my theoretical knowledge of music is practically non-existent, and although I’ve got a pretty good handle on what I like and why I like it, explaining it in terms other than ‘er…cos it’s well good’ is tough.
  

I’ll give it a shot though, and I guess the first thing that drew me to the band and this album in particular is the interplay between the drums (Matt Tong) and the bass (Gordon Moakes) – for example, the intro to ‘Positive Tension’ is just amazing, and every single song is pulled together by really tight and interweaving rhythms, with some amazing drums fills scattered throughout.  ‘Luno’ is another great example, driven by a really insistent bass line and topped with crashing drums and cymbals, it builds to an amazing climax and creates an atmosphere unlike any other band I know – perhaps the closest parallel would be Joy Division and their devotees/imitators Interpol (I’m on the devotee side of the debate, but I can see what people mean).  With such a solid backing, the two guitars have room to clamber and skitter all over the shop, creating some amazing textures that really fill out the songs – and I think that’s another reason why I love this album so much, is that it introduced me to a whole new world of guitar noises and sound effects etc. It sounds silly to say, but before I heard this album I was still stuck listening to Jet and The Offspring, thinking all guitars should be loud, brash, and simple – and the huge ranges of styles and ideas on Silent Alarm blew me away.  One minute you’re lost in the fast, jerky rhythms of ‘Banquet’, the next there’s lush synths and chords in ‘Blue Light’, and each of the 15 songs gives you a fresh idea, and basically gave me one hell of a good musical education.  I think that works in its favour as well, the fact that it’s 15 songs long makes me for a really absorbing experience, one that it’s difficult to get tired of because there’s always something new you haven’t noticed before – and its incredibly impressive that there’s not (I would argue) a single weak link or ‘filler’ song.   Sure, some of the tracks might be a little overshadowed by the ubiquity of ‘Helicopter’ or ‘Banquet’, but as a whole it stands together better than most other albums of this length – not overstaying its welcome but not leaving you feeling cheated either (cough The Vaccines cough).  It manages to combine indie disco floorfillers with softer, more introspective ‘solo’ listening experiences (‘Compliments’) without feeling disjointed or confused, which is pretty astounding, and to me the sign of a truly great band/album.

I don’t really know how else to describe how much I like the music, but I feel on much safer ground discussing the lyrics, seeing as I’m an English student (or was. Bloody hell.)  I think it’s the lyrics above all that make this my favourite album, and of course part of that is how well they gel with the music, the tone and the atmosphere created by everything else.  But they stand out in so many tracks as truly wonderful, and were such a revelation to me when I first discovered the album.  I could pick out hundreds of examples, but that would be not only a little boring for you reading this but might also kill some of the magic, by over-anaylsing or ruining that sense of surprise or discovery, so I’ll just restrict myself to a few.  This album demonstrates Kele Okereke’s lyric writing at its best, when he nailed the art of telling a story but keeping it vague enough to mean so much to so many different people – I’m not concerned with the problems of being forced to shave my legs as talked about in ‘Luno’, but the problems  of ‘being tired of your mum and you’re tired of your dad, got you jumping through hoops’ seems to me to be pretty universal.  Sure, there’s the occasional lyrical weak spot, such as ‘you’ve been trying to reach me, you bought me a book’ (This Modern Love) but such moments are part of the charm, a touch of human warmth under what can often be quite icy and forbidding guitar lines.  The fact is that I first discovered the album through friends when I was  15/16, and we all know how fun and carefree a time that was . For various reasons lyrics such as ‘it hurts all the time when you don’t return my calls and you haven’t got the time to remember how it was’ from ‘Like Eating Glass’ and ‘if you feel, a little left behind’ from ‘Banquet’ really hit home, and in many ways the reason I like this album so much is that it seems to me to be about growing up: the anger and frustration – ‘why do you have to get, so fucking useless’ (‘Positive Tension’ – an absolutely astonishing moment live); the sadness and melancholy ‘this modern love, breaks me’ (‘Modern Love’) and the endless ups and downs of a pretty normal childhood.  Trying to explain this feels pretty weird, as each song over the years has built up this huge backlog of invested emotions, and even now listening to the repeated refrain of ‘I figured it out’ of ‘So Here We Are’ brings back so much, all of it intangible and half remembered but important nonetheless.  ‘Plans’ might be the best of the whole bunch, so I’ll hope you’ll forgive me if I quote at length:

Wake up dreamer
It's happening without you
Cut your hair and shave your beard
You squandered your chances
I'll give you a thousand pounds
To show me how you do it
Stop being so laissez-faire
We're all scared of the future

Been training vipers to come for you
In your dreams to release you
Been training vipers to come for you
In your sleep
And the ravens are leaving the tower
And the ravens are leaving the tower
Make your peace

I've got a taste for blood
Leave the weak, leave the young
I've got a taste for blood
I'm walking out without you
You will kill or be killed
It's about progress
I've got a taste for blood

Wake up sleepyhead
It's happening without you
Such a nice guy
You tell me everything twice
Whipcrack speed jump
We will run backwards
Stop being so laissez-faire
We're all scared of the future

We make plans for big times
Get bogged down, distracted
We make plans for good times
All neon, all surface
So kiss me before it all gets complicated
I've got a taste for blood

This song sums up so much of what it’s like to grow up and feel like you’re missing out, switching from sadness to anger to confusion, mixing readily understandable images with slightly unsettling phrases...pff – I’m kinda running out of words, as I don’t really want to ruin it but getting too analytical. I guess I can never really communicate what these songs and lyrics mean to me, because I can barely explain it myself, but even if you don’t like Bloc Party I hope that this has reminded you of the songs that mean a lot to you, and the reason why music is so important – why good, meaningful music needs to be supported and spread to as many people as possible.  This was such a big album for me growing up that I don’t think it’s too far to say that I’d be a very different person if I hadn’t been shown it when I was, and without a doubt it’s one of the reasons I got into offbeat and am so keen to get people involved and talking about the music they love.  If I had to have a conclusion, I guess I’d say that I still love this album because I’m still growing up in a way, and the day I stop loving it might be that day I become an adult. And then God help us all.

Big love x

Alex