By Andy Smith

The recent wave of British post-punk, new-wave revivalists has pleased me to no end. Obviously, bands such as Franz Ferdinand, Futureheads, Kaiser Chiefs and others are talented in their own right, but it also makes a crusty music writer feel good to see comparisons of new bands to records he owned twenty-plus years ago and can regale the young-uns about the good old days before Gang of Four went all syntho, and XTC still wrote funny songs about mums and dads denying about their son's skinhead activities. And though I haven't disliked anything I have heard from any of these packs of jagged guitar wielding, dance-beat loving lads, my favorite of the bunch is Bloc Party.

I was first turned on to Bloc Party during this March's South by Southwest music conference. Some friends from Malta raved about them, and though I missed their showcase at Stubb's BBQ,, the band got a rave post-SXSW press coverage. I finally got a chance to hear Silent Alarm a couple of weeks later. The record has a wonderful mix of tense and driving but still rubbery rhythms that make you want to jump up and down. When combined with its slashing guitars, it's a definite winner. Meanwhile, singer Kele Okereke has a winningly sincere voice which works especially well on the record's more melodic songs.

In playing the comparison game, unlike their contemporaries for whom the Gang of Four comparison seems more like wishful thinking, Bloc Party actually does resemble the original incarnation of the recently risen greats. This is especially true in their rhythm section where Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes capture the essence of both the jackhammer attack and spatial sound of the bass and drums sound on Entertainment (check out "Positive Tension" which salutes "Anthrax" without totally aping it).

But the guitars of Okereke and Gordon Lissack effectively echo another one of the first post-punk era's greatest bands, the Jam. The Jam always got a rep as a mod-revival band, but my favorite moments of that band came when Paul Weller went for the dark, angular approach and found the brilliant riffs on songs like "Set the House Ablaze" and "Private Hell" (the best versions of these songs are on the Dig the New Breed live record). Check out the second track on Silent Alarm, "Helicopter," for the best example of this.

But all of the comparisons to post-punk bands of the past leave Bloc Party in danger of being thought of as derivative, which is unfair. Silent Alarm effectively incorporated these strong influences but has its own sound. More aggressive songs like the stellar opener "Like Eating Glass" and the lead single "Banquet" showcase the band's ability to write punchy, energetic songs with an added melodic dimension which gives them buoyancy. "Little Thoughts" effectively fuses the post-punk sound with a more straight-ahead rock sound and has the catchiest chorus on the record.

To my ears, it is on the record's quieter, prettier songs where Bloc Party really shines. "Blue Light" is a gorgeous song and shows a distinct lack of attitude, which seems to bring them closer to contemporary bands like Doves and even Coldplay. The best of these is "This Modern Love" which finds Okereke delivering vulnerable, aching lyrics on the confusing point where the casual edifice of a relationship conceals deeper emotions.

I have often wondered whether or not my fondness for emerging bands has doomed them to obscurity with the corollary being that bands that I detest seem to become huge. Fortunately, Bloc Party seems to be gaining a foothold on this side of the Atlantic, which will hopefully lead to a long and successful career with records that go beyond Silent Alarm. Hopefully, their appearance at ACL will be a good barometer of how far they have come in the past six months.