BLOC PARTY

I do not know if there is a name for this kind of thing ('retro-progressivism' perhaps) but a couple of years after the spate of late-seventies rip-off bands (Strokes, Hives, Libertines and co) the British music scene became flooded with bands paying homage to the music scene that, sure enough, developed a couple of years after the end of the seventies. Last year saw the emergence of the most popular fore-runners, Franz Ferdinand, and now we have the likes of the Futureheads (too abrasive and not enough focus for my liking) and, of course, Bloc Party (delightfully dubbed 'this year's Franz Ferdinand') taking up the baton left by the post-punk-funk bands in the early eighties. Personally, though, I would be a surprised man if Bloc Party did match the level of popularity reached by the late archduke. Franz Ferdinand are unavoidably style over content but they do have a handful of brilliant up-beat pop songs that are just trendy enough to appeal to all levels of record buyers. Behind all the art-school posturing they've always got a wink for the camera or a pout for the Top of the Pops crowd. Bloc Party are far too sincere for all that. Although the jerky guitar riffs and off-kilter rhythms do indeed echo the post-punk past Franz Ferdinand so successfully mined the genre this album most calls to mind is 'emo'. Frontman Kele Okereke clearly comes from the same whiny vocal area of London Robert Smith originated from but even then the music on here seems more indebted to the self-absorbed moaning of American emo from the last decade. In some ways they sound like a really gay version of At the Drive-In, without the anger or swagger, and, certainly, it is wishful thinking to refer to the uber-cool influences of Talking Heads and Gang of Four. Although I can (and indeed will) compare this album to the Cure's first even Smith did not drag it down with meandering, slow-motion over-wrought ballads like "Blue Light", "This Modern Love" and "So Here We Are". The other reason Bloc Party will struggle to match Franz Ferdinand is because they just don't have the songs. Lead single "Helicopter" comes as close as anything but it ain't "Take Me Out" and, although it is a very good song, it is clearly the most appealing song on the album and it is one they have already exhausted in promotional terms. They do succeed a few more times in marrying poppy melodies to interesting jerky guitar workouts, particularly "Banquet" and "She's Hearing Voices", and album opener "Like Eating Glass" is a stealthily atmospheric introduction but there simply is not enough here to suggest Bloc Party are going to be as successful as the record company clearly thought they would be. Indeed, they even throw in a song stacked full with American-friendly lyrics ("Price of Gasoline") in a transparent attempt to cuddle up with the yanks, which only serves to leave a rather bitter taste. I could not let this review end without quoting the NME's wonderful description, straight out of Nathan Barley, of Bloc Party as 'a band for the whites, the blacks, the straights, the hip-hop kids, the freaks, the geeks, the emo kids, the punk-funkers, the queers and, yes, the fashionistas'. I do not know who most of those people are, particularly the intriguing 'fashionistas', but I hope they take disappointment well. Wanting a band to be great does not necessarily make it so. Regrettably, at some point they actually have to write great songs.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk