There was a time when Bloc Party -- a London foursome that plays a manic blend of fractured beats and Wire-sharp guitars -- felt anything but at home in the U.K. music scene. "When we were an unsigned band, everyone sounded like a sub-Travis/Coldplay rip-off," recalls the band's twenty-three-year-old frontman, Kele Okereke, whose vocals veer between a Robert Smith croon and a John Lydon sneer.

These days, rock fans are a lot friendlier to jittery, danceable bands. Blame Franz Ferdinand and their spawn: the Futureheads, the Killers, the Bravery and, undoubtedly, some band that's forming right now in a barn in Dorsetshire. But that sound's growing dominance gave Bloc Party something new to worry about: sounding like everyone else. "Those sort of disco beats are very exciting -- but not when every crap band is using them," Okereke says. "We made a conscious decision to stray away from that."

Bloc Party's career is full of such conscious decisions. After Okereke and guitarist Russell Lissack met through acquaintances, they began shaping their group before it had a rhythm section (they found bassist Gordon Moakes through a classified ad, and their ninth and current drummer, Matt Tong, through friends).

Though the band's style lumped it with the post-punk revival, Okereke was more inspired by Nineties dance music. "The only [post-punk] band I had time for was the Talking Heads, and trying to rip off their ideas would be pointless," he says.

Instead, the group created a frantic, futuristic sound of its own, as evidenced on its debut album, Silent Alarm (out on March 22nd, accompanied by a U.S. tour). The hit U.K. singles "Helicopter" and "Banquet" offer pseudo-medieval backing vocals, squawking guitars and skewed rhythm-section punch, while the ricocheting refrain of "She's Hearing Voices" has a techno-like hypnotic power. "Music is just notes and rhythm, genre is just a construct," says Okereke. "That's the Bloc Party manifesto."

Bloc Party North American tour dates:

3/21: Pomona, CA, Glasshouse
3/22: Los Angeles, Troubadour
3/23: San Francisco, Bottom of the Hill
3/24: San Francisco, Pop Scene
3/26: Seattle, Neumos
3/27: Vancouver, Richards on Richard
3/30: Minneapolis, First Ave
3/31: Chicago, Metro
4/1: Detroit, Magic Stick
4/2: Toronto, Lee's Palace
4/3: Montreal, Cabaret
4/5: Boston, Paradise Rock Club
4/6: Philadelphia, First Unitarian Church
4/7: New York, Bowery Ballroom
4/8: New York, Bowery Ballroom
4/9: Washington, DC, Black Cat