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"I thought this was Killadelphia," said Kele Okereke, the singer of the London quartet Bloc Party, at the TLA on Tuesday night. "We were expecting something dangerous." He wasn't complaining, just inviting his audience to take a step into the unknown.
A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party's second album, feeds on the late-night ambience of a crowded dance club. Voice pitched at the top of his range, Okereke sings as if he's fighting to be heard, rising above the echoing howl of Russel Lissack's guitar. Like Gang of Four's Hugo Burnham, drummer Matt Tong plays high-speed funk with a slightly mechanical edge, as if the songs are an engine he can't quite control.
In "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)," Okereke described foie gras dinners and magazine launch parties with the air of someone who, even in his mid-20s, has had his fill. "East London is a vampire, it sucks the joy right out of me," he sang. "Remember how we longed for corruption in those golden years?"
Weekend marked a step away from the aggressive, dance-floor-oriented sound of the band's first album, 2005's Silent Alarm, in favor of a more textured, vulnerable approach. Okereke, who had been cryptic in his lyrics and cagey with the press, began openly discussing his homosexuality and drawing inspiration from Morrissey's sharp-edged candor.
But with a sold-out crowd at their feet, Bloc Party kept their doubts at bay, drawing on Silent Alarm nearly twice as often as Weekend. They filled the gaps with the New Order throb of the non-album "Flux" and the stripped-down "Mercury," the first single from their uncompleted third album, where Okereke's sampled voice becomes just another instrument. Even when Okereke did let his guard down, it didn't show. When, in "Prayer," he asked, "Tonight, make me unstoppable," he sounded as if he already was.
Under the strobing lights, the crowd undulated like a rolling sea, into which Okereke launched himself as the band neared the end of its set. As the band quickened its pace, stretching its rhythms to the breaking point, he floated on a sea of hands, safe from harm.
The night's openers, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, a foursome from Reading, England, merely sounded broken. Apologizing for not having written a set list beforehand, they scrambled to string drum loops, synthesizer drones and spasmodic guitar into coherent songs, and fell short at almost every attempt. Offend? No. Annoy? Yes.
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