Live Review: Bloc Party
On first glance, it seemed these was the last rites for Bloc Party. Interview innuendos suggested tonight would mark their finale, or, at the very least, the severing of ties with disgruntled drummer Matt Tong. Yet as they cannon out defiant...
Bloc Party
Album review: C’mon, be honest. ‘Intimacy’ was horrible, a chronic misstep from a band capable of conjuring blue magic in a second. Perhaps in an effort to regain some of the confidence they seem to have been losing – ‘Silent Alarm’...
Bloc Party
Something funny happened to Bloc Party around the release of ‘A Weekend In The City’ in 2007: they became insufferable bores. With debut album ‘Silent Alarm’ they rode the post-Franz wave of angular post-punk into new and exciting...
Bloc Party
Don’t know about you, but I find the psycho-rave pills Kele’s heroes must have popped before ‘Intimacy’ have made them one of the mightiest forces in rock today. Here, what could have been a standard Party rocker gets abducted by techno...
Bloc Party
Kangol hats all round: Bloc Party are ripping off another bit of the ’90s and we’re all going to sit here and listen to it because it’s innovative. That’s innovative, you hear? Cue four minutes of wailing from everyone’s favourite...
Lollapalooza 2008
The ride for Lollapalooza, the festival set up by Jane’s Addiction frontman (and recently-anointed Godlike Genius) Perry Farrell has been an eventful if sometimes rocky one. Begun way back in 1991 as a “farewell” tour for his band running...
Bloc Party
“My mercury’s in retrograde!” exclaims Kele, continuing to shake off the tweedy trappings of ‘indie rock’. Screeching into the stratosphere where ‘Flux’’s blasters burnt out, this stunning and adventurous new cut from the Bloc is...
Bloc Party
“The Daily Mail says the enemy’s among us/Taking our women and taking our jobs/All reasonable thought is being drowned out/By the non-stop baying, baying, baying for blood”. Scared yet? Christ, it’s enough to make Prince Harry think he’d...
Bloc Party
Having begun life as a snootier Rakes, Bloc Party are fast turning into pop’s premier miserablists. This time ‘Laughing’ Kele is yearning for his life pre-fame over the sort of Snooze Patrol guitars which explain why their new abum is...
Bloc Party: Carling Academy Bristol; Wed Feb 7
Witnessing the fragility and unfathomable pain in Kele’s face as he clasps his head in his hands during ‘Uniform’, it’s hard to believe this is the same person who was larking about with us on the tourbus mere minutes earlier. It’s as if...
