After completing touring duties for 2016's mellow
Hymns,
Bloc Party spent a chunk of 2018 and 2019 on the road performing their beloved debut album,
Silent Alarm, in its entirety. Reconnecting with their early days sparked something that they capture -- or recapture -- on
Alpha Games.
Bloc Party's timing couldn't have been better, considering that nostalgia for the early 2000s, as well as a post-punk revival, were at a peak when the record was released. Frequently,
Alpha Games sounds like the album they could have released after
Silent Alarm if they hadn't been so determined to escape the constraints of the so-called angular scene they were initially associated with: When
Kele Okereke's voice leaps as he sings "he says he knows when I've been drinking" on the sharply catchy opening track "Day Drinker," it's an immediate throwback to the days of "Banquet." Except for the mention of cryptocurrency, "In Situ" could be a
Silent Alarm bonus track -- and reaffirms that
Bloc Party's brilliance at swinging between wounded and fierce hasn't aged a bit. Though
Alpha Games' distillation of days gone by is impressive, the way
Bloc Party still rail against deception and hypocrisy, both personal and political, might be even more so. With burly drums and grappling riffs, "Traps" paints a seedy portrait of a sexual predator; on "By Any Means Necessary," the band fortify their independence with combative dance-punk.
Bloc Party are as outspoken as ever on
Alpha Games, and sometimes they're still as unabashedly awkward. Both "Callum Is a Snake" -- a warning against backstabbing friends with a title worthy of scrawling on a bathroom wall -- and the Partygate scandal tirade "Rough Justice" are cathartic jumbles with spoken-word delivery that's clumsy compared to
Okereke's agile, impassioned singing.
As uneven as the album can be, it's never a simple rehash of
Bloc Party's glory days.
Adam Greenspan and
Nick Launay's tight production gives
Alpha Games a leaner attack than
Silent Alarm, and while the moments of beauty that balance the band's outbursts are in shorter supply, they're all the sweeter when they appear. "Of Things Yet to Come" is a classic
Bloc Party ballad filled with chiming guitars and sighing vocals, and "If We Get Caught" is a fine example of how their songs about falling in love sound like the start of a life-changing adventure. As on
Four, the band also find different forms of expression that fit in with their body of work. Pitched somewhere between
Depeche Mode and
Gary Glitter, the electro-glam bar brawl of "The Girls Are Fighting" is fresh, if not exactly new. By contrast, "The Peace Offering" is one of the few moments where the passage of time is felt in its world-weary recriminations. Indeed,
Bloc Party have been around long enough and explored enough styles that
Alpha Games' musical homecoming isn't a retreat. More often than not, it feels essential. ~ Heather Phares
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