Personnel: Paul Epworth (programming).

Audio Mixer: Rich Costey.

Audio Remixer: Four Tet.

Recording information: Detalab Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark (06/2004-07/2004); Miloco, Hoxton (06/2004-07/2004); The Exchange, London, England (06/2004-07/2004).

Photographers: Paul Epworth; Matt Tong.

Much more polished, serious, and straight-ahead than their initial EPs suggested, Bloc Party's debut album, Silent Alarm, reveals them as a band equally informed by taut art-punk and the grand gestures and earnestness of groups like Coldplay and U2. Though they're not quite as stadium-sized expansive as either of those two bands (yet), Bloc Party sound a lot more comfortable making proclamations like "Positive Tension"'s "Something glorious is about to happen/A reckoning!" than contemporaries like Franz Ferdinand or the Futureheads would be. Silent Alarm is also more varied than Bloc Party's early work indicated it might be, spanning edgy pop, atmospheric ballads, and angular, percussive tracks that are all served well by the album's big, layered production. The great single "Banquet" and even better opening track, "Like Eating Glass," put Bloc Party's heart-on-sleeve emotions in the service of tight, energetic songwriting that makes their earnestness a little easier to swallow. The gorgeous ballads also make the most of Bloc Party's emotional directness: "Blue Light," "This Modern Love," and "So Here We Are" are some of Silent Alarm's finest moments, with a tension and impact that show how powerful even their softest songs can be. As both the band and album's names imply, Silent Alarm is an overtly political album. Bloc Party fare better than many other bands that dip into that fray, but the results are still mixed: the well-intentioned no-blood-for-oil sentiments of "Price of Gas" are heavy-handed, but "Helicopter"'s Bush-bashing and the antiwar "Pioneers" ("We promised the world we'd tame it/What were we hoping for?") are relatively subtle, and work fairly well as political pop manifestos. As dynamic as Silent Alarm is, it's not perfect: Kele Okereke's yelpy vocals get a little grating on the less melodic songs, and the second half of the album doesn't quite sustain the momentum it had at the beginning, although the bonus remixes of "Plans" by Mogwai, and "Pioneers"" by M83 help make up for this. Although it wouldn't hurt if there were more "party" (the celebratory kind, not the political one) in Silent Alarm, it's still a fine debut album with a lot of passion and polish; it's hard not to respect, if not fully embrace, the intensity and integrity of Bloc Party's music. ~ Heather Phares

As the sticker on the album's cover states, Silent Alarm Remixed is "a track-by-track reinvention of Bloc Party's stunning debut album by some of their favorite artists." While it might seem a little soon for this kind of reinvention, some of these remixes date back to the band's earliest EPs, such as the reworking of "Banquet" by Phones (aka Bloc Party and Maximo Park producer Paul Epworth). Not surprisingly, the quality of the remixes varies: Ladytron's uninspired take on "Like Eating Glass" turns the original's fist-pumping fervor into a puddle of synth strings and looped vocals that drown in reverb, but Whitey's version of "Helicopter" -- which moves from xylophones and wolf howls to bare, brazen guitars and back -- is rawer, weirder, and arguably a lot more interesting than its source. Silent Alarm Remixed ends up feeling like a polarized version of Silent Alarm, with both its soft and strident sides emphasized. As on the original album, the prettier moments are often the most powerful ones. It would be difficult to make "Blue Light" anything less than gorgeous, but the Engineers' aptly named "Anti-Gravity Mix" truly is stunning. M83's version of "The Pioneers," Four Tet's "So Here We Are," and Mogwai's "Plans" also share a frosty, remote quality that is achingly lovely. The remixes of Bloc Party's harder-edged songs don't all fare quite as well: despite its frenetic IDM makeover, "Positive Tension" is still kind of dull. On the other hand, "Price of Gasoline" sounds better as spiky electronica than it did as angular nu-post-punk, and "Luno" kicks harder in Death from Above 1979's hands. Though not every "reinvention" on Silent Alarm Remixed is great, it's more consistent than most remix collections, and actually functions surprisingly well as an album in its own right for that very reason. [Like certain versions of Silent Alarm itself, Silent Alarm Remixed was also available with a bonus EP that featured three previously unreleased tracks, "Storm and Stress," the excellent "Always New Depths," and "Skeleton," along with acoustic versions of "Storm and Stress" and "Plans."] ~ Heather Phares

On this immensely appealing debut, SILENT ALARM, the London-based quartet Bloc Party fulfills the promise of their barnstorming 2004 singles "Banquet" and "She's Hearing Voices." Led by magnetic frontman Kele Okereke, the band extracts the most fascinating aspects of the previous 25 years of British indie rock and fuses them into a new entity--complete with smarts and heart--never delving into retro-kitsch or slavish imitation.

Okerere's urgent yelp most often recalls a fired-up incarnation of the Cure's Robert Smith, but the sounds the group creates echo everything from Gang of Four's staccato militarism ("Banquet") to the reverberating guitars of the Chameleons ("Price of Gas"). At times, Bloc Party also recalls the ecstatic soundwashes of early-1990s cult pioneers like Ride ("Plans") and Slowdive ("Compliments"). Lyrically, Okerere tilts toward an endearing adolescent pessimism that, even when the music is less than mopey, gives him away as a goth at heart ("and the ravens are leaving the tower/make your peace"). However, at the end of "Price of Gas," when he proclaims "I can tell you how this ends/We're going to win this," one can hope that Okerere is expressing his confidence in a bright future for his extremely talented band.

Although most remix albums offer little more than vaguely tweaked novelty, Bloc Party's SILENT ALARM REMIXED transcends that trend with a stunningly diverse set of reworked tracks from the British group's much-lauded debut. Given the consistently high quality of the original songs, the guest artists--which include innovative electronica acts (M83, Four Tet) and like-minded post-punk peers (Engineers, Mogwai)--have a lot to work with here. Keeping SILENT ALARM's running order intact, REMIXED pushes frontman Kele Okereke's vocals up and down in the mix, while adding and subtracting keyboards, guitars, and beats, resulting in reinterpreted tracks that often sound remarkably different from their earlier counterparts. In fact, SILENT ALARM REMIXED is so well executed that it may win Bloc Party a new set of techno-inclined fans, and turn few Britpop aficionados in the direction of their record store's electronica section.