Silent Alarm

1	Like Eating Glass 4:20
2	Helicopter 3:40
3	Positive Tension 3:54
4	Banquet 3:22
5	Blue Light 2:47
6	She's Hearing Voices 3:29
7	This Modern Love 4:25
8	Pioneers 3:35
9	Price of Gasoline 4:19
10	Little Thoughts 3:27
11	So Here We Are 3:53
12	Luno 3:57
13	Plans 4:10
14	Compliments 4:40

Barnes & Noble

There has been so much pillaging of Joy Division and Gang of Four's signature post-punk sounds of late, it actually prompted the latter to reform. While few of today's current crop of sideways haircuts are worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as those bands, Bloc Party live up to the hype. Even on early singles like the brooding, propulsive "She's Hearing Voices" and the dance-floor stomper "Banquet," they displayed a level of talent that eclipsed most of their peers. Both songs are included on Silent Alarm, a visceral rush of a debut that already finds them working at the top of their game. Frontman Kele Okeneke (who at times sounds a bit like Robert Smith) can go from a whisper to a wail in a heartbeat, and his guitar interplay with Russell Lissack is exciting and inventive -- check out the way they trade riffs on "Helicopter" and "Positive Tension." They also know when to let the guitars drop out of the mix while the rhythm section propels things. (Heaven forbid they ever lose hyperactive drummer Matt Tong, Bloc Party's not-so-secret weapon.) Furthermore, Silent Alarm is the sound of a band that has already moved beyond the scene that inspired it. Look to the ethereal "So Here We Are" and "This Modern Love" for likely signs of things to come. When the dust settles and hipsters have moved on to the next hot musical trend, Bloc Party will, no doubt, still be vital. Bill Pearis

All Music Guide

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

Rolling Stone

London's Bloc Party achieve... manic bliss on nearly every track of their superb long-playing debut. Barry Walters

Entertainment Weekly

Alarm possesses that rare essence that will keep you swooning the morning after. (A-) Timothy Gunatilaka