I’m 25 and cynical and burnt-out and fed-up; I don’t get excited by new bands anymore because I’m past it. I’ve never heard of half the groups that younger writers at Stylus are crowing about, and what’s more most of the time I don’t want to. That whole New Rock Revolution / art rock / garage rock / New Wave of New Wave of Postpunk stuff? Balls to it. The Strokes had one song which they played 12 times. The Libertines didn’t even have one song! So my attitude towards most of the guitar groups emerging over the last four years has been one of don’t believe the hype.

Bloc Party fuck all that shit, because they’re straight-up amazing. I’ve avoided them until last month, not consciously, just vaguely, but now I’m hooked. It wasn’t a single song that got me, no road-to-Damascene style conversion when a killer single hit the radio within hearing; and in fact, the couple of times I had heard them on the radio I’d been nonplussed in the extreme. But hearing the album (Silent Alarm, due out in February) in full before Christmas, it slowly grabbed me and now it’s got me good.

Bloc Party have some of that NME clique's spiky guitar energy, certainly, but what they also have is a sense of adventure, romance, belief and intelligence which combine to make them eclipse any of their so-called peers. They have the yearning chord-change down pat, but they're not yearning for a fix or for a quick shag up a back alley - they're yearning for some kind of truth and progress. They make my eyes feel too big for my head. A quick jaunt around their website reveals a refreshingly pretentious attitude, and a proper listen to the singles “Helicopter”, “Banquet”, “Little Thoughts” and especially next single “So Here We Are” reveals a band with a much wider scope and greater degree of nuance than one might expect. But like I said, it’s the album that’ll really grab you.

I'm getting Damon Albarn if he was actually from London and not an idiot. I'm getting Long Fin Killie gone razorsharp. I'm getting early Disco Inferno with less accent on the defeatism. I'm getting New Order. I'm getting Wire, I'm getting Radiohead if they weren't miserable. In the twin guitar solo of “Plans” I'm getting Television and Love. In the opaque and nearing horizons of “Blue Light” I'm getting 3 of the most beautiful minutes of music I've heard in a long time.

A proper review of their album to follow on Stylus next month. But for now… don’t quite believe the hype, but don’t dismiss it either.