afternoon, Kele Okereke is trying to articulate some fairly complex thoughts on the alienating effects of modern life, but rather fittingly he can barely hear his interviewer and his interviewer can barely hear him. The stutter that frequently impedes Okereke's speech doesn't help. And after a few frustrating minutes, the singer hangs up nearly in mid-sentence as his plane begins boarding.
Less than 24 hours later he finds himself in Chicago, resuming the Whew. It's all a bit like "A Weekend in the City" (Vice), the chaotic sophomore album from Okereke's London-based band, Bloc Party. "Weekend" is the follow-up to the group's critically acclaimed 2005 dance-rock debut, "Silent Alarm," and it's a somber look at life in the fast lane complete with drink, drugs, glamor and a sense of impending doom.
The setting is London after the terrorist bombings, but there are also nods to New York and Berlin. In other words, the "city" in the album's title could be yours. "One of the alternative names for the record was 'Metropolis,'" Okereke explains.
"Throughout the record, all the characters have this real sense of disillusionment with what life has actually offered to them. They're trapped in these routines that don't provide any spiritual satisfaction at all." The new album may disappoint those expecting more of the punchy, punk-edged grooves that made Bloc Party an underground hit two years ago.
But after a whirlwind schedule in which the band toured extensively, became an indie-rock suffered a collapsed lung, Bloc Party seems to have a new and not-so-rosy On "Song For Clay (Disappear Here)," Okereke, 25, sings of popping pills at a magazine party "with complete disdain." He turns paranoid on "Hunting For Witches," camping out on his rooftop "with a shotgun and a pack of beer." By the time he gets to the track "On," he's seeking solace in cocaine: "You make my tongue loose/I am hopeful and stutter-free.
" There's also a song called "Where Is Home?" based on the case of Christopher Alaneme, a teenager of Nigerian descent stabbed to death in Kent, England, in an apparent hate crime. Okereke, also Nigerian, sings of revenge fantasies, but mostly he sings of sorrow: "In every headline we are reminded/That this is not home for us.
" Those following the case of Sean Bell, the man killed by police here in Queens, might see some parallels. "A lot of the anxieties I've had growing up black in London kind of came to the surface in that song," Okereke says. "It's a song about being angry but not really knowing where to direct that anger.
" The album ends with "SRXT," named after the antidepressant Seroxat. Okereke says the final lines are about walking away from the city, and from everything: "Tell my mother I am sorry/And I loved her." Gee, maybe Okereke should visit the countryside?
"Well," he says, "I certainly think about moving out of London." Bloc Party plays at 7 p.m.
Friday and Saturday at The United Palace, 4140 Broadway, Manhattan. With Albert Hammond Jr. and Sebastien Grainger.
Tickets are $20-$34. Call (866) 468-7619 or go to ticketweb.com.
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