Reacting to years of dumbed down garage rock and punk-funk. Bloc Party release their second album in February.
It's been a bad time for Bloc Party and an even worse one for their bank manager. Nine days ago their drummer's lung collapsed, forcing them to cancel a US tour, and now their hotly anticipated second LP, A Weekend in the City, has just leaked onto the internet, 3 months ahead of release.
It's already got the message boards humming, and with good reason. First, it's a concept album, rather hilariously about a weekend spent boozing it up around Shoreditch, east London. It's not the first LP with an overarching theme released this year - My Chemical Romance, The Streets and Larrikin Love have all reacted to the last few years of dumbed down garage rock and punk-funk with something more ambitious. This should be saluted, although if you see any of them recording their third album at Hampton Court ice rink whilst dressed like Frodo Baggins, feel free to shoot them.
Even more striking, however, is the fact that Bloc Party's album launches a scathing attack on Blair's Britain. Their debut LP may have been titled Silent Alarm, but this time the bells are ringing loud and clear with songs that take aim at everything from the deranged tabloid response to the 7/7 bombings (Hunting For Witches - "The Daily Mail says there are enemies among us/Taking our women and taking our jobs") through the perils of being black in modern Britain (Where Is Home?) to the general crapness of public transport (Waiting For The 7:18).
Of course, such subject matter hardly seems revolutionary. So then why aren't our other pop stars making similar noises? During the turbulent Tory years, indie acts queued up to moan about Maggie 'n' (to a lesser extent) Major, yet it's hard to name another British guitar-pop record that's spoken openly about the state of British life since New Labour came to power. Did the sight of Noel Gallagher swigging champers at Number 10 send out the message that protest singers could take a decade off? Or is the apolitical, gritty hedonism of The Streets, The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys the true picture of young life in the 21st Century? In other words, what records do you think will sum up the Blair era?
