Album Review: "Four"

"Four" - Bloc Party

I'm sort of a loss to know where to start with this album. So I'll attempt to draw a deep analogy: it's not that I have nothing to say about it. It's just my thoughts about it are all over the place and have no consistent beginning and end. So, much like this album then.
Even though Brit-pop band Bloc Party seem to be one of the better artists out there in the English music scene at the moment, and they certainly serve up originality in spades in this album, there's just something about it which just doesn't seem to work.
Yet at first glance it seems to have all the right ingredients. Fantastic artwork, the promise of Bloc Party getting back to their rock roots, and the great sounding single "Octopus" with it's faltering guitar leads and punchy chorus. So what went wrong?
Well, it might be that only four or five of the tracks on this album actually sound like songs. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the album is not a complete write-off. Musically the other tracks sound incredible: like the blues-based riffing in "Coliseum", the non-stop rhythm of "So He Begins To Lie" and the construction of songs like "Team A" which are just interesting to listen too. But at times this sudden interest in song/riff construction actually starts to drag the song down - for example in the metal-esque "We Are Not Good People" and the previously mentioned "Coliseum", the vocals are so quiet in the mix you can't help but listen to the guitar. Which is totally excusable, because it sounds like that's all the singer is doing too.
On top of that, the cd is punctuated with the most annoying little interludes EVER. Sometimes it's quite cool hearing these little snippets of dialogue (in fact I'd venture to suggest it makes a couple of songs on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" that much better), but here it just doesn't work. Seriously I have no idea why the band decided to keep these in - they're not funny, well-placed, or meaningful at all.

That aside, the songs "Four" has which actually work almost make up for the lack of filler on this album. "V.A.L.I.S" (despite featuring some of the worst lyrics ever with the nonsensical line "Talks in circles and Greek") is actually a really good song with one of the catchiest choruses you'll find on this album, and in fact in Bloc Party's discography altogether. "Day Four" is another standout track which slows the mood (and the tempo) down a bit, which is where this band finally really shines. Another one definitely worth mentioning is "Kettling" with it's decent vocal performance, incredible riffing and one of the coolest guitar solos I've heard in a while. If only the rest of the album had stuck to this format, I would probably be shouting it's accolades from the bottom to the top of the blogging world.
Still, "Four", though not quite as impressive an album as I had thought, definitely has it's merits and Bloc Party is a band worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5/5 All up a rather medicore offering, but saved somewhat by a couple of really good songs, fantastic musicianship and some incredibly tasty guitar lines.