To put it politely I have had no time for Bloc Party at all for quite some time, Silent Alarm was excellent and A Weekend For The City was a flawed but still by all accounts strong sophomore effort by the band, however everything since then has been a confusing mess of experimentation of the house variety which quite frankly simply didn't suit the band. Kele seemed down right intent to silence his incredibly talented friends by making them take a back seat to his new love of electronic music & making some truly trash tracks in the process of doing so. So it's to my surprise that 'Four' isn't only not embarrassing but it's actually rather good with some of the bands strongest output since 'Silent Alarm' won all our hearts way back in 2005. The band have embraced the raw sound once again with the traditional bass, guitar & drum formula they'd become famous for, but whilst this may sound like they've just retreated back to old territory, that would be an inaccurate assumption to make. 'Four' is far heavier then anything they've put out before with a lot of Grunge influences to be found on this album, 'Kettling' for example sounds like something Smashing Pumpkins would've put out in their peak, and the first 2 tracks 'So He Begins To Lie' & '3x3' slap you in the face with distorted guitar and creepy vocals. The are a lot of incredibly melodic moments to be found here as well 'Real Talk' sounds like a very strong Red Hot Chilli Peppers song and 'Day Four' grabs the listener with it's subtle build and captivating atmosphere. This album is by no means perfect and I don't think it reaches the highs set by 'Silent Alarm' but it's a very consistent collection of good songs which will make Bloc Party fans everywhere sigh with relief; the band hasn't sounded so together and cohesive for a long time.
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