Hyped as the next big thing after Franz Ferdinand,
Bloc Party, too, harked back to the sound of 20 years earlier
(the British new wave) augmented with Brit-pop melodies and danceable tempos.
The result, Silent Alarm (Vice, 2005),
was brilliant in the way that the party-oriented new-wave revival can be,
quoting everybody from
XTC to
Public Image Ltd via
Gang Of Four and
Joy Division,
without actually achieving any synthesis at all.
The album collects the early singles:
the suspenseful and insistent She's Hearing Voices,
the frantic and bombastic Helicopter,
the quietly tense So Here We Are,
the pounding disco of Banquet,
the darkly lilting Little Thoughts.
They present the poppy side of the band.
The edginess of Russell Lissack's guitar redeems the rest of the album, that
cannot live up to the catchy refrains of the singles, helping to coin markedly
different languages for the main songs:
the hurriedly percussive trot of Like Eating Glass,
the warped, wavering pseudo-ska-surf flights of Price Of Gas,
the oneiric raga-like rambling of Compliments,
the hysterical strumming of Pioneers.
Far from being merely a set of party ditties, the album exhudes
urgency and poignancy.
Unfortunately, the Brit-pop disease struck
A Weekend In The City (Vice, 2007) and turned it into yet another
tedious parade of predictable melodramatic melodies. Despite
Hunting for Witches and Waiting for the 7:18, neither the
arrangements nor the singing nor the lyrics do much to rise above the
usual Brit-pop fluff.
As a social fresco a` la U2 it is even more embarrassing than the U2 were.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Clemente Diena)
Lanciati come la "next big thing" dopo i Franz Ferdinand,i
Bloc Party sono tornati al suono di 20 anni prima (la new wave britannica) con
in pi— le melodie del brit-pop. Il risultato, Silent Alarm (Vice, 2005),
Š stato brillante nel senso in cui lo pu• essere un revival della new wave pi—
festaiola, citando chiunque dagli
XTC ai
Public Image Ltd passando
per
Gang Of Four e
Joy Division,
senza di fatto raggiungere una sintesi. L'album comprende i primi singoli,
She's Hearing Voices,
Helicopter,
So Here We Are,
tranne Little Thoughts, i quali presentano il lato pop della band. La
chitarra nervosa di Russell Lissack riscatta il resto dell'album, che non riesce
a essere all'altezza dei ritornelli orecchiabili dei singoli, aiutando a coniare
linguaggi molto diversi per le canzoni principali:
Like Eating Glass,
Price Of Gas,
Pioneers.
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