The Bloc are back! We’re excited! Exclamation marks! After an all-too-long hiatus, Bloc Party are returning with their fourth album, titled Four, late this summer (August 20th to precise). The trailer for the record showcases its creation as well as snippets of a handful of tracks. Our verdict? For the most part, it sounds quite a lot like Silent Alarm… take that as you wish.
As the lights dimmed we were greeted not by the recently-reunited Bloc Party but by a superb laser display, rotating hipster triangles and all. The coloured circles on the cover of the band’s comeback album Four were blown up to psychedelic proportions, entrancing the revellers, who almost failed to notice when the four-piece actually took to the stage. With a complete lack of acknowledgment towards the crowd, which surely can only come with knowing that every single person in the room is gagging to hear you, they opened immediately with new track “3 x 3”. It’s insanely heavy chorus soon made up for the fact that you really couldn’t connect with the song yet, engaging the eager crowd to surge forward in frenzy. However, the first half of the set was marred with a sense that some of the newer songs were either not up to scratch or the band had misjudged which ones would go down well live. Even the choice to play “Trojan Horse” as their first already-released song, wasn’t greeted especially well, although the simplified, stripped down guitar version of “Waiting for the 7:18” was fantastic.
It took wheeling out first hit “Banquet” for it to feel like Bloc Party really were back with a vengeance; even the new songs just seemed to get better after it. After Kele Okereke claimed that it was his favourite off the new album, “Team A” did indeed show some serious potential. Dressed in a simple buttoned shirt and what can only be described as PE shorts, Kele seemed in complete control of the crowd and band, as they closed the set with a brilliant rendition of their keyboard-heavy standalone single “One More Chance”, flowing epically, feedback and all, into the ever-so-popular “Helicopter”.
It was the encore, though, that really stands out as the high point of the gig. Playing just one short, new ditty beforehand, the band really got the cups of piss flying with Intimacy opener “Ares”. However the highlight of the night certainly must go to “This Modern Love”. Perhaps we were all so knackered that the chance to stare in wonderment at the surreal laser displays, while the emotion of the song really overtook you, was just too perfect. Announcing the next would be their last song resulted in actual booing from the crowd. These were quelled immediately as he began a cheeky attempt at Rhianna’s “We Found Love” straight into the fan favourite dance anthem “Flux”.
For their second gig in three years, you really couldn’t tell that Bloc Party had been gone that long. As for Four, it will certainly be a dark affair, and yes some of the songs were a wee bit iffy on first listen; “Real Talk” sounding more like Kings of Leon than what we really want to hear. Nonetheless, there was some seriously heavy potential, and we can be certain that harcore fans will lap it up regardless. The band have lost none of that raw energy, drummer Matt Tong holding the whole affair together with unrivalled skill, and the only major difference that seems to have occurred during their hiatus period, is that guitarist Russell is looking a lot less emo-tastic in the hair department than four years ago.
- Headline photo: Kavita41
Thanks to a Amazon glitch, the first cut from Bloc Party’s fourth album Four (geddit?) was available on Friday night, a few days before it was the intended debut date of today. But let’s forget that happened and no one’s heard this before now. “Octopus” is so angular and spiky, it could’ve easily been released around the same time as Silent Alarm; that’s not to say they’ve regressed. Instead Bloc sound more confident in their own abilities and sound than they have before. If anything, Four is going to be an intriguing record.
Frank Turner: the poverty-stricken man’s Billy Bragg. Okay, that’s a bit harsh, but even as someone who likes a significant amount of Turner’s solo output, his canonisation as a voice of the alternative youth doesn’t sit well. He’s written some superb songs, but when looking back in ten or twenty years time, it’s doubtful Frank Turner will be seen as a pivotal figure in the musical world.
Five albums into his post-Million Dead career and Turner is currently at a peak on his personal timeline. 2012 saw him headline Wembley Arena to a sold-out audience of 12,000, perform at the London Olympics pre-show, last album England Keep My Bones certified as silver, and he’s a immoveable fixture on festival line-ups around the world. But he’s lucky all this came before Tape Deck Heart, because on the evidence of these twelve songs, he’s nowhere near deserving of grabbing such high brass rings.
Before diving into the deep end of what’s wrong with Tape Deck Heart, there are a few highlights to mention. The muted emo-rock of “Plain Sailing Weather” and the switch from music hall piano number to 100mph punk on “Four Simple Words” are top-drawer, whilst “Anymore” is the pinnacle, turning in a gentle acousit ballad reminiscent of Fionn Regan. Album closer “Broken Piano” impresses too, super-sizing the usual FT formula to fit those giant stages he has to play.
But large parts of the record feel almost as artificial as Mumford & Sons’ studied folksiness; the mandolin augmentations to Turner’s usual sound (Mumford bagsied the banjos), the rousing crescendos, the jarring, incongruous “dear”s and “darling”s. But Turner’s been doing this middle-class Troubadour schtick for almost eight whole years, and if you chucked every one of his songs into a playlist and hit shuffle, there’d be little to differentiate between songs released in 2006 and those released in 2013. This could be twisted into a positive element, as a few too many bands strive to drastically change their sound from album to album instead of letting things grow and evolve organically, but five albums in a row with only nominal musical development is ridiculous.
Turner’s lyrics aren’t really evolving either. Addressing us directly as listeners, references to shows and gigs, and similar devices are all big no-nos in this writer’s mind. They take you out of the moment, swapping the escapism music often delivers with a metaphorical sharp stick which jabs you in the side, reminding you that you’re simply listening to one song out of billions, spending three minutes of your dreary little life listening Frank Turner. You poor bastard.
“Four Simple Words” is the worst offender of all. Rhyming “very” with “century” Spat references to Shoreditch hipster bands? Sleeping on people’s floors? Bands working hard and earning their keep? It just comes off as amateurish, petulant and bitter. Frank, mate, you’re an extremely successful musician, you should be above complaining about this sort of inconsequential shit. Your hero and forebear Mr Bragg used his music to talk about important societal matters, he wasn’t pandering with lyrics about “the kids who never fit in with the rest”. British music could really do with someone saying something about, well, anything; the shitty economy, the shitty politicians, the shitty state of society? They’re all fertile soil in which to sow the basis for lyrics. England Keep My Bones was an album that was quite passionate about English heritage and culture (but not in an extreme way), so you’d think Turner would have something to say two years down the lane, with the omnishambles occurring every second?
Nope. While they can be good a lot of the time, songs about fucking up and/or having a good time are dime a dozen, and Turner’s have none of the wit, heart, humour or power of The Gaslight Anthem or The Hold Steady. Why on earth do people savage Taylor Swift for writing break-up songs when Frank Turner is giving us The Middle-Class White Boy Blues every two years or so?
