Oh, the remix album - good, bad or ugly, they are a mainstay of the music industry. I approached the Bloc Party’s new remix album Silent Alarm Remixed with slight apprehension. I was happy, because I now had a “new†album from one of the best bands to emerge in the last five years. But I was still weary despite the lengthy list of all-star remixers like Ladytron, M83, Four Tet and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Silent Alarm Remixed is not the cool, coherent, nearly flawless post puck album I fell in love with earlier this year. Silent Alarm Remixed is a bit discombobulated. Taken separately, the remixes are superb, placed together in the format of an album, the extreme range of electronic styling from ambient noise to four-four dance floor, seems the bounce off one another, repelling like two magnets creating a jumbled, fragmented mix of rock and electronica.
It’s still good though, fans of Bloc Party will enjoy the reinterpretation for a minute or two and then resume the long wait for Bloc Party’s true follow up.
Stuff to Sample: From Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm Remixed, “Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)†and “The Pioneers (M83 Remix)â€
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