Bloc Party's fourth album is a FOURnominal departure
Britpop darlings Bloc Party make a sudden comeback after a hiatus with a much anticipated and originally titled album, Four.
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Bloc Party burst onto the scene back in 2003, when guitar music was the new pop, with Mercury Prize nominated album Silent Alarm. Since then, the four-piece took a four-year break only to return with their fourth album, called Four. Seeing a pattern?
Music trends have changed since their critically acclaimed last album, Intimacy; One Direction have gone global, N-Dubz have become a triple threat and Adele is out-selling Pink Floyd. Frontman Kele has said that they wanted to “challenge themselves by not relying on the invisible grid that seems to be mapping out all of popular music these days". So, they hired At The Drive-In and Mars Volta producer Alex Newport, to produce a new diluted hardcore.
The twelve-track album opens with So He Begins To Lie which sounds like it’s been pulled out of the At The Drive-In reject bucket – that’s not to say it’s bad, just that you can hear Newport’s influence.
The shredded and broken beat guitar staccatos with Kele’s distinct punk-esque vocal almost turning into a warble in places is a strong opening to an album. It’s grabbed my attention and I'm raising my eyebrows.
Second track 3x3, opens with an aggressive, breathy vocal I’d expect to find on a Marilyn Manson record. There’s something distinctively gothic and slightly touches metal, in a way a teenage boy tries to touch a girl’s hand in a cinema. Kele’s vocal is intentionally shaky while telling me that no one likes me before heading to faux orgasmic sounds that only Robert Plant can really pull off.
Octopus is the track that BBC6 Music has been playing relentlessly and the track that re-sparked every muso’s interested in the band. It reeks of the Bloc Party of yester-year and a track that you would expect to find on any of their previous albums. Its electro rhythms is something that’ll be played in indie discos up and down the country, where kids in their skinny jeans stamp to the beat and grab their hair in a melodramatic way thinking they’re the next Pete Doherty.
Real Talk is another strong track and sets itself apart, flitting between a tinny guitar riffs normally reserved for country songs or Travis to a high-pitched melodic echo found in any nineties Britpop track. The most unnerving element of this track was it ended on Kele talking about breasts. That’s right, Kele was talking about breasts.
For someone who likes guitars loud and heavy, Kettling fits the bill. It’s reminiscent of early Smashing Pumpkins. For me, this is a stand out track as it sounds like the heavier stuff that so many bands are afraid to produce. It’s not trying to be clever or modern; it’s a good old fashioned British rock song with a guitar solo in the middle-eight to boot.
Day Four (there’s that magic number again) slows it all down and chills us out. Smooth melodies and pretty riffs take us back to the eighties for a rock Climie Fisher ballad. This could possibly be the next single; it has all the accessibility to please Radio 1 all the way through to BBC6 Music. Atmospheric and bordering on the spooky would make the perfect winter soundtrack.
Coliseum lifts influences from the blues and possibly BRMC. It’s let down by the simple fact that Kele’s vocal doesn’t really suit this genre until it bursts with high-octane exuberance into a metal riff.
V.A.L.I.S stands for Very Angelic Lambs Inside Ships… ok, I have no idea what it stands for but it’s a very catchy and cheesy little pop song, completely different from the rest of the album but somehow still makes sense. The repetition of ‘sho-sho-sho-show mee-e’ sticks in your head and trust me, it’ll be there for days.
Team A is a track that can only be described as very Bloc Party. It has the same quick, sharp guitar riffs that you’d expect from them. This makes it the less interesting track, but it still gets the old rock leg going. The next couple of tracks, Truth and Healing (as their titles suggest) also follows emotional guitar pop this pattern.
The album reaches a blistering climax with We Are Not Good People with riffs that rip through you and shred you to pieces. Without realising it, you’re screaming, jumping off furniture and playing air guitar while gurning at the next door neighbour’s cat.
It pulls from so many FORgotten and brilliant influences that it’s hard not to like it. It’s completely different from its FORebearers. You’d be FORgiven FOR thinking this is just another indie album FOR the NME to FORnicate over. What it proves is that FORtune favours the brave and this is a FORmidable album and, quite possibly Bloc Party’s tour de FORce.
First published 04/09/2012
Bloc Party burst onto the scene back in 2003, when guitar music was the new pop, with Mercury Prize nominated album Silent Alarm. Since then, the four-piece took a four-year break only to return with their fourth album, called Four. Seeing a pattern?
Music trends have changed since their critically acclaimed last album, Intimacy; One Direction have gone global, N-Dubz have become a triple threat and Adele is out-selling Pink Floyd. Frontman Kele has said that they wanted to “challenge themselves by not relying on the invisible grid that seems to be mapping out all of popular music these days". So, they hired At The Drive-In and Mars Volta producer Alex Newport, to produce a new diluted hardcore.
The twelve-track album opens with So He Begins To Lie which sounds like it’s been pulled out of the At The Drive-In reject bucket – that’s not to say it’s bad, just that you can hear Newport’s influence.
The shredded and broken beat guitar staccatos with Kele’s distinct punk-esque vocal almost turning into a warble in places is a strong opening to an album. It’s grabbed my attention and I'm raising my eyebrows.
Second track 3x3, opens with an aggressive, breathy vocal I’d expect to find on a Marilyn Manson record. There’s something distinctively gothic and slightly touches metal, in a way a teenage boy tries to touch a girl’s hand in a cinema. Kele’s vocal is intentionally shaky while telling me that no one likes me before heading to faux orgasmic sounds that only Robert Plant can really pull off.
Octopus is the track that BBC6 Music has been playing relentlessly and the track that re-sparked every muso’s interested in the band. It reeks of the Bloc Party of yester-year and a track that you would expect to find on any of their previous albums. Its electro rhythms is something that’ll be played in indie discos up and down the country, where kids in their skinny jeans stamp to the beat and grab their hair in a melodramatic way thinking they’re the next Pete Doherty.
Real Talk is another strong track and sets itself apart, flitting between a tinny guitar riffs normally reserved for country songs or Travis to a high-pitched melodic echo found in any nineties Britpop track. The most unnerving element of this track was it ended on Kele talking about breasts. That’s right, Kele was talking about breasts.
For someone who likes guitars loud and heavy, Kettling fits the bill. It’s reminiscent of early Smashing Pumpkins. For me, this is a stand out track as it sounds like the heavier stuff that so many bands are afraid to produce. It’s not trying to be clever or modern; it’s a good old fashioned British rock song with a guitar solo in the middle-eight to boot.
Day Four (there’s that magic number again) slows it all down and chills us out. Smooth melodies and pretty riffs take us back to the eighties for a rock Climie Fisher ballad. This could possibly be the next single; it has all the accessibility to please Radio 1 all the way through to BBC6 Music. Atmospheric and bordering on the spooky would make the perfect winter soundtrack.
Coliseum lifts influences from the blues and possibly BRMC. It’s let down by the simple fact that Kele’s vocal doesn’t really suit this genre until it bursts with high-octane exuberance into a metal riff.
V.A.L.I.S stands for Very Angelic Lambs Inside Ships… ok, I have no idea what it stands for but it’s a very catchy and cheesy little pop song, completely different from the rest of the album but somehow still makes sense. The repetition of ‘sho-sho-sho-show mee-e’ sticks in your head and trust me, it’ll be there for days.
Team A is a track that can only be described as very Bloc Party. It has the same quick, sharp guitar riffs that you’d expect from them. This makes it the less interesting track, but it still gets the old rock leg going. The next couple of tracks, Truth and Healing (as their titles suggest) also follows emotional guitar pop this pattern.
The album reaches a blistering climax with We Are Not Good People with riffs that rip through you and shred you to pieces. Without realising it, you’re screaming, jumping off furniture and playing air guitar while gurning at the next door neighbour’s cat.
It pulls from so many FORgotten and brilliant influences that it’s hard not to like it. It’s completely different from its FORebearers. You’d be FORgiven FOR thinking this is just another indie album FOR the NME to FORnicate over. What it proves is that FORtune favours the brave and this is a FORmidable album and, quite possibly Bloc Party’s tour de FORce.
First published 04/09/2012
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