Bloc Party are an English indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke on vocals and rhythm guitar, Russell Lissack on lead guitar, Gordon Moakes on bass guitar and Matt Tong on drums. Their brand of indie rock has been compared to bands such as The Cure, Blur, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies and Joy Division.[citation needed]

The band formed at the 1999 Reading Festival by Okereke and Lissack. They went through a variety of names before settling on Bloc Party in 2003. Moakes joined the band after answering an advert in NME magazine, while Tong was picked via an audition. Bloc Party got their break by giving BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and Franz Ferdinand's lead singer Alex Kapranos a copy of their demo, "She's Hearing Voices", which was later released as a single.

In February 2005, the band released their debut album Silent Alarm. It would be critically acclaimed and make NME's Album of the Year list. The album was certified platinum in the UK a year later. The band built on this success with the release of their second studio album, A Weekend in the City, in 2007. The album reached a peak of #2 in the UK and #12 in the Billboard 200.