Bloc Party came about after two friends, Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack were inspired to form a band after attending the Reading Festival in August 1999. Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong would join later after answering adverts in the NME and auditioning. The story is that they got their big break in 2003 when singer Okereke went along to a gig in London and handed a copy of their demo to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand and also to BBC Radio 1 DJ, Steve Lamacq.
A couple of early efforts came out on small independent labels before the band signed to Wichita, a London-based label which was very much at the forefront of this seemingly sudden reignition of interest in guitar-led indie music. 2004 saw the band grow in popularity, thanks to a number of single and EP releases, as well as extensive touring. The debut album, Silent Alarm, was released in February 2005 and was a huge success, hitting #3 in the UK, going on to sell more than half a million copies and spending the best part of 60 weeks in the Top 100, thanks in part to a run of hit singles, including new songs which were then added to a re-released and expanded version of the CD album.
mp3: Bloc Party – Helicopter
mp3: Bloc Party – So Here We Are
mp3: Bloc Party – Banquet
mp3: Bloc Party – Two More Years
All great stuff if you want my take on things. It had been quite a while since I last listened to this album prior to pulling this post together. I had forgotten just how well it maintained a high standard throughout.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Silent Alarm still sounds clean today. I have Banquet on some of my workout playlists and it rotates on with regularity. The twin guitar attack is always fashionable on my speakers.
I can quite understand “Silent Alarm” as workout music – just listening to it makes me feel exhausted and exhilarated even when I am sitting down. A great album (especially “Luno”), that I don’t listen to nearly enough. Becoming a bit of a theme!
Thanks for sending me back to it.