I have already owned this cd for quite some time. It was bought as a birthday gift. LOVE this albumn - everyone should own it!!!
September 14, 2008 |  | One of the best albums of the decade. |  |
A perfect mix of post-punk, alt rock, and dance. What really stands out about the album is that there is quite a variety in sounds and textures throughout (much like a Radiohead album). From the anthems Like Eating Glass and Banquet, to the more ambient rock tracks Blue Light and So Here We are, to a electro dance track She's Hearing Voices, the straight experimental rock tracks Price of Gas and Plans, to the rock tracks Helicopter and Little Thoughts, and the perfectly haunting finale Compliments. Kele's vocals and philosophically relevant lyrics, along with the precise drumming, cool bass and that awesome Fender Telecaster sound create a wonderful amalgamation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
December 4, 2007The best cd I have bought in a really long time. I loved it.. I liked every song on this cd. All my friends liked it to.
August 23, 2007Bloc Party have been riding the wave of critical acclaim and comes with no surprise. Their debut album is one of those works whose style seems so easy to classify, but upon further investigation, lacks any simple categorization. Put simply, this album is bloody brilliant. Instead of constructing another cliche rock album with standard hooks, Bloc Party opt for complex rhythmic constructions and unconventional song structures. The result is a fresh spark of originality in a genre that, at least from current radio output, seemed destined towards banality. Whether he is yelping in frustration or crooning a ballad, Kele's voice supplements the tight orchestration from the other band members (with a fantastic Matt Tong on drums). "Like Eating Glass" is a perfect opener for the album, combining the sense of urgency and trend in a way that is hard to describe, but easy to appreciate. "Helicopter", "Banquet", "Positive Tension", and "She's Hearing Voices" are tracks that mesh jagged, angular riffs with the disillusioned frustrations of Kele. And on the other end of the spectrum, "Blue Light" and "This Modern Love" are lovely, soft ballads. The incredibly gorgeous "So Here We Are" does away with conventional song structure, opting for a beautifully crafted crescendo. The result is one of the most heartfelt songs I have heard in ages. When the final cascades of chords arrive, with Kele singing "Hold on, I've figured it out!", the result is simply ecstatic. Finally, "Compliments" closes out the album with a state of meditative suspension. Bloc Party is the first band in a long time has delivered an album of solid aesthetic merit. In the song "Pioneers", Kele sings "We will not be the last, we will not be last." I hope that he keeps this promise.
July 20, 2007And so am I, Kele and Gordon's specifically. Mixed cross-firing angular guitars, anguished vocal delivery, emotionally devastated lyrics, and danceable firework drumming Bloc Party explodes out the speakers with a cool intensity that commercial music has lost. The clean Fender guitar sound lends itself well to the alternately ambient and aggressive playing of Russell and (generally) grounded rhythm stylings of Kele. Gordon's bass playing throughout the album displays a solid rock know how in constructing parts that both hold up the rest of the song while also being individually listenable.
All the songs fire on all cylinders; even the ballends such a "Blue Light", "Complements" and "So Here We Are" hit home with intensity rather than outright speed. The rockers like Helicopter, Positive Tension, She's Hearing Voices, and Little Thoughts rush along powered forward by Matt's drumming, pulled skyward with racy guitar lines and thicked up with rich bass. The only dud is "The Price of Gas" which happens to be the only moment that Kele's ranting goes to downright annoying with the repeated yelling of phrases like "Is that a FA-CT, Is that a FA-CT, Is that a FA-CT". It really kills the momentum of the album to the extent that nine times out of ten I skip it. Otherwise this is a 5 star album, with beautiful production values and a band performing like finely tuned sports car; racing, weaving, speeding up, and slowing down with almost unimaginable hast and ease.
July 14, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
(152 reviews)