One Phoenix fan examines a life lived through Bloc Party’s ‘Silent Alarm’

Earlier this week, UK rockers Bloc Party commemorated 20 years of their debut album, "Silent Alarm." In honor of the anniversary, Phoenix New Times music editor Chris Coplan has penned a brief ode to the scrappy indie rock record. It is, as he tries to best encapsulate, an album that defined his young adulthood in Phoenix, his own subsequent travels and his return to Phoenix as a more thoughtful adult.

I can experience "Silent Alarm" only as a series of memories.

It's like the cassingle versions of a full life, really.

I’m 19 at some mostly lame Tempe house party, thinking about how "Helicopter" is the first truly political song that my ilk could call its own. The janky guitar and pseudo-dancefloor vibes are the soundtrack to the first time I realized I hated George Bush. Nowadays the guitar doesn’t resonate as much, but I still enjoy my venomous disdain for 43. If anything, it felt like a genuinely big deal when you could find some secret nemesis of your own, and that you even have a secret theme song to commemorate your one-sided animosity. The whole experience was all hate and vitriol, but it was also rooted in finding your own way to love the world.

Then, without warning, I’m 23 in 2009, and I find myself in need of the record once again. I’m walking late at night near my parents’ old house near 51st and Peoria Avenues, and the album deep cut “Blue Light” is spinning on repeat in the wicked summer air. I’m deeply yearning for a girl half a world away, and I hope my own light may carry her back. It never really did, but those feelings still keep me warm. Not in any way that’s ever helped, but it's still this glowing little orb I can hold in my hands that reminds me that we can always control ourselves and what we give to others. That, and good feelings don't always mean great outcomes, and that's just life.
It’s a few months after that relationship ended (let's say mid-2010), and I live in a tiny apartment that faces a barrier wall of State Route 51. (The power of this visual metaphor wasn't lost on me even back then.) My space doesn’t have furniture yet, but it’s just enough room for me dance over and over to “Banquet.” Mid-soda breaks, I think about how that song is perfect for letting it all go and celebrating the only thing that matters: some increasingly pure version of yourself. I hadn’t truly known suffering by then, but that felt like a pivotal step into adulthood.

It’s a few years later still, in the haze between summer and fall 2012, and there’s a new girl and yet the same old album. This time, I've clung to “She’s Hearing Voices,” a dance-rock banger that somehow references "The Matrix" in a silly but thoughtful way. It makes me feel quite cool, just like this new girl, and I think everything is about to turn around. Once again, it doesn’t, but that song gave me years of thinking that the world was about to crack open. Eventually it did, even if it was less to do with the song and more so turning 30 and finding peace with my life's trajectory. The life lesson here? Change will always come, but not how and when you had expected it.
Sharply and suddenly, a decade has flown by since I was a teenage indie dude (spring 2018, to be precise). In that span of time, there’s been several years of intermittent listening and obsessing between myself and “Silent Alarm.” This latest round, however, I find myself leaning hard into “Compliments.” I’ve returned to Phoenix after some time away, and I have a new car, a new apartment and a new girl. The song is an ending, but it’s one that makes you feel overjoyed to watch everything you knew fade into the background. It's the kind of ending that feels like a fever breaking, or the end of a long night — everything is uncertain as heck but somehow affirming and oddly exciting.

My past heartaches and general personal deficits still hum and sting, but those parts of my life are over and this new one is mostly pretty great. So much so, that I still reside firmly in that newness even right now in 2025. It's as if there's this bounty of hope that I can use to maybe traverse the fuzz just a little bit longer. Like, I just need a few more minutes in the afterglow of these guitars, gents, and everything will be fine. Or, at least they'll be better than they once were.

Other songs on the album invite catharsis. And even the songs mentioned here have continued to play different roles in my life, as if each tune occupies some multiverse of yearning. But the end result is always the same: I can mark so many important things in my life (even if it’s just heartache and growing pains, really) to this record.

It is a living, mutable chronicle of my experiences as both a singular entity and someone trying (enthusiastically, imperfectly, etc.) to connect with others.
The feelings and places tied to these memories move in and out of focus, but I remember the life lessons and the personal truths and that unwavering sense that this record defined me even if it’s only ever by mere proximity. It’s a tool I’ve used to become the person I am, and whether that man is enviable or not, I can’t deny that I will always have this record to better engage and connect with these ideas and experiences.

That is, truly, all we could ever ask of any record. Let it be an old friend who reminds us how we connect with the world. Let it remind us of hard truths and offer unpredictable new lessons. Over time, my relationship with "Silent Alarm" grew into one of the most rewarding I've ever developed with a piece of art. All I need is one quick spin and I’m 20 again. Or 22 or 33 or whatever age I was when the record last gave me a chance to dance and to grasp my ever-changing lot in life.

Thank you, Bloc Party, for the endless grooves and the introspection that makes this party all that sweeter still.