Off the Map

Bloc Party everyone!

Bloc Party at my place!

I first stumbled across Bloc Party in the dead of this past winter - a couple renegade songs floating around the internet. It perked up my ears, but I didn't fall in love. A while later, in April, I managed to get my hands on their debut album "Silent Alarm" - I've not been able to take it off rotation ever since.

"Silent Alarm" has an almost epic depth to the music - the layered guitars, drums, synth and the lead's accented vocals build effortlessly upon one another, creating a sound infinitely interesting. The lyrics range from

• political ("Stop being so American/There's a time and there's a place/So James Dean/So blue jeans/Gonna save the world", "Why can't you be more European/Bastard child of guilt and shame/bury your head in the sand"),
  
• to social ("A sense of purpose and a sense of skill, a sense of function but a disregard/We will not be the first, we won't/you said you were going to conquer new frontiers/Go stick your bloody head in the jaws of the beast/We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?")
  
• and, of course, to relationships ("What are you always holding out for?/What's always in the way?/Why so damn absent-minded?/Why so scared of romance?").

I've not even touched on the catchy riffs, dynamic dynamics, and how you can tell they love their stuff. You are just going to have to hear for yourself.


"I've been driving a mid-sized car/I never hurt anyone/Is that a fact?/The price of gasoline keeps on rising/nothing comes for free/Make like a stone, make like a plant/I can tell you how this ends".

posted by Jason @ 7:34 pm