Bloc Party's New Single Is A Jagged Edge Polished Until It's A Strawberry Smoothie

Honestly, I'm not trying to slag on Octopus, the lead single from Bloc Party's new album Four; truth be told, I think it's a solid track that should get them a fair amount of buzz for the album.

It's just that, while listening to its heavily processed, pristine soundscape, I can't help but remember their gloriously noisy debut Silent Alarm. More specifically, I can't help but hypothesize that Octopus would have been an absolute rager on that album.

Silent Alarm didn't put Bloc Party on the map simply because they used angular guitars at a time when angular guitars were garnering popularity. It put them on the map because underneath those guitars was a messy, tense atmosphere, a mangled snarl of paranoia and defiance.

Given seven years and three albums to incorporate synth and dance elements to their music and learn studio trickery, it seems it's all on display here. The guitars don't sound authentic, all chopped up in Pro Tools and processed like Kraft Singles. The drums are airtight, never taking up more space than the absolute minimum. At the end of the day, it's a pleasing song, but with the massive asterisk of it sounding like it was constructed, not played.

Four sees release on August 21.

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