Product Description

'Silent Alarm' is the first album from London-based art-rockers Bloc Party. The album combines punky, staccato style musicianship with poignant lyrical matter, evoking echoes of both The Pixies and Joy Division. Includes the singles 'Helicopter' and 'Banquet'.

Track Listing

1. Like Eating Glass
2. Helicopter
3. Positive Tension
4. Banquet
5. Blue Light
6. She's Hearing Voices
7. This Modern Love
8. Pioneers
9. Price of Gas
10. So Here We Are
11. Luno
12. Plans
13. Compliments

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #870 in Music
• Released on: 2005-02-14
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 their debut album, 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 favour 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

Customer Reviews

Current favourites
I only got into Bloc Party about a year ago, with the release of A Weekend in the City. Before that, I was pretty much unaware of their existence, but thanks to NME magazine, which I discovered at the same time, and the popularity of the singles The Prayer (which to be honest I don't really like) and the song I Still Remember, I decided to buy that album. And absolutely loved it.

I therefore later decided to buy Silent Alarm, even though I was only aware of one song off the album, the amazing So Here We Are. I absolutely adored it. Having been raised on a diet of The Cure, Elvis Costello and Oasis by my father, indie music is pretty much imprinted on my skull and Bloc Party are one of the best bands around at the moment, if not THE best. I have a pet hatred of the bands regarded as 'indie' at the moment such as the Hoosiers or Scouting for Girls, and so I always feel wary about saying I like that genre, but I'm not quite sure how else to describe a band like Bloc Party.

Fantastic guitars, great riffs and a distinctive lead vocal. My particular favourites are Like Eating Glass and Helicopter, which have an ability to really make me feel good. I can't even explain why. I don't claim to be a great music critic (I took music at GCSE and scraped a C) but I can tell you, at the moment I consider this band to be one of the best ones around.

Flawless? ... i think so....
Put simply this is the most important album to have hit me in years, since its first release to the present day there isn't a single album that is in the mind or CD player ect as much as silent alarm, it is an astounding piece of work whether taking into account it is a commercial debut or not. The work of Matt Tong is above everything else on offer by other musicians in the UK at the moment, recorded ad live he is the most talented drummer around in my opinion, this coupled with the rest of the band's sense of 'sonic youth' ethics, brings a album full of ideas and a strong sounds that relates to whats going on. Theres not a single track i don't love, to the point where i can't pick out any tracks which 'stand out' because they all do and they all have their own unique sounds and styles... buy it now!

chekit
Bloc Party are an odd band really; they have the whitest ever black guy as a lead singer & a drummer with a better sense of rhythm than most hip hop producers. That's not enough for Silent Alarm to live up to the astonishing hype, of course, but it still stands higher than most of the British indie released around this time. As a bonus, there's also a sense that the band was actually having fun making this record, something that was lacking in the awful & far too serious second album.