Block Party: Four Review

Album: Four

Artist: Bloc Party

Genre: Post-punk Revival

4.7/10

    

     Let me begin this review by saying that Silent Alarm is one of my favorite albums.  I seriously believe that as far as post-punk revival goes, that album is essential listening.  But the problem is Bloc Party doesn’t want to be a post-punk revival band, they don’t want any specific labels at all, that’s why their discography has been varied and their worked shunned by the bare-bones rock loving fans that loved the debut.  Now I can respect Bloc Party for wanting to evolve, to not make mundane albums to reengage old fans (I’m looking at you Blink-182), but Four represents this No Man’s Land for Bloc Party.  The record is a sort of return to roots for Bloc Party, but the riffs, the grooves, and the overall production takes a steep downturn, with tunes either boring or even offensive to the ears. 

     What makes this album even more of a disappointment is the fact that it begins with a great song.  ‘So He Begins to Lie” has a different, almost awkward (in a good way) heavy riff that couples with a nice laid back groove. Kele Okereke’s vocal work is stellar, soaring over a chorus.  The outro has fast-strumming noisy guitar work that creates an atmosphere of calm chaos, while the drums blister between cymbals and snare drum.  “3x3” dips in quality, incorporating a weirder groove.  It’s much heavier and more dissonant, with the vocals coming across as both scared and scary at times.  “Octopus” is a great song, boasting some cool tremolo effects, some crazy tapping solos, and some biting vocals.  The album pretty much stops being impressive there.  “Real Talk” is a softer ballad that features falsetto and what sounds like a banjo.  The banjo was quite unpleasant.  “Kettling” borrows from the grunge scene with some deep power chord riffage.  The sounds change abruptly from verse to chorus.  There’s a sweet guitar solo on this track however.  “Day Four”, “Truth” and “The Healing” all share disconcerting similarities.  They’re all ballads that seek to add some atmospheric qualities (despite the riffs galore).  However, they all kind of blend together and form this uniform, boring soft alternative rock sound.  “Coliseum” is just an awful song from start to finish.  It comes in with this sort of pseudo-blues riff on an acoustic guitar, I would even compare it to the time Avenged Sevenfold tried to write an acoustic song, but then out of nowhere a fast punk/thrash kind of thing.  It’s up there for the worst track I’ve heard this year.

     Production-wise there’s some apparent problems.  The levels jump around from track to track.  Some songs bring the drums up and distort them a bit, while others bring up the guitar to uncomfortable levels.  On many of these songs, Kele’s vocals are placed through a filter to produce a very generic “megaphone” sound.  Many songs begin and/or end with cheesy “botched takes” and audio from recording (‘Real Talk’ ends with Kele talking about many different kinds of breasts).  Lyrically there’s not much going on, but the lyrics aren’t even supposed to take center stage on this record.  The most memorable line wasn’t even original.  On “Team A” Kele sings “snitches get stitches”.  It was kind of funny

     This was a very disappointing record for me, and I’m sure it will be disappointing to fans as well.  I would avoid listening to this LP, but I would encourage you to check out the songs “So He Begins to Lie” and “Octopus” because those are very strong tracks.

FAVE TRACKS: So He Begins to Lie, Octopus