IN REVIEW: Bloc Party - "Alpha Games"

 

Inviting comparisons to your band's best work when talking up a new album is a dangerous exercise for anyone, but it's on a whole other level when you're in Bloc Party and the work you're drawing parallels from your new album to is Silent Alarm, the 2005 post-punk masterpiece that basically perfected the band's approach the first time out. They would spend the next three records running away from the sound they helped start a miniature British invasion with in the mid-aughts, incorporating more and more electronics into their sound before imploding the band with the gnarled, heavy overcorrection of Four in 2012 (I liked it personally, but I'm in the minority there). Not long after that, the rhythm section would be replaced as Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack created Bloc Party's divisive fifth album on computers; Hymns failed to register much of any goodwill upon release, and it feels like much longer than six years since Bloc Party's attempted reintroduction fell on deaf ears.

Created in the shadow of some Silent Alarm celebration shows a few years back, Alpha Games had a long gestation period, but is notable for featuring "new" members Justin Harris and Louise Bartle's first substantial recorded contributions for the band. If you were privy to any of the pre-release hype, you've probably also heard plenty of talk about Silent Alarm, how its vibes informed the new music, how playing those old songs got the creative juices flowing, so on and so forth.

So, is Alpha Games like Silent Alarm? Sure, one can argue that it's the most Bloc Party have sounded like Silent Alarm since that lauded debut, but it's really only like Silent Alarm in the same way that streaming Coachella on YouTube is like being there in person. Yeah, you can feel some of that residual vibe if that's what you're trying to do, but so many things about the experience are so fundamentally different.

There are a few slashing, angular guitar riffs, but also not as many; there are no Helicopters here. There are tender dénouements, but they aren't as heart-quaking as, say, This Modern Love. Perhaps the biggest difference is in Kele, as opposed to the newer members; on Alpha Games, he sounds like he's throwing himself fully into the performance, which is certainly admirable, but there's far more vamping and a noticeable swagger in the lyrics that doesn't quite match up with past efforts. Rather than societal observations or heartfelt odes, many of these songs are presented as character studies, from the warring brothers on Day Drinker to the horned-up club goer on Traps to the jilted aggressor on Callum is a Snake, and on it goes. 

When things line up right, these songs feel vibrant and personal. You Should Know the Truth, despite featuring a synth line on its chorus that isn't exactly flattering, feels more sincere than what precedes it on the track list. Likewise Sex Magik, another one that features synth prominently but has a great beat, a sweet, relatable coming of age story and a particularly harmonic turn from Kele. Then, there are the tender moments; Of Things Yet to Come is a layered ballad that uses a busy drum rhythm and some hopeful dual guitars as building blocks to one of the album's most satisfying payoffs. If We Get Caught is better still, proving Bloc Party still has the ability to floor you with something that feels majestic and heartfelt, wrapping it all in some soaring harmonies and waiting until the eleventh track to reveal the album's best song full stop.

I'm not trying to be a downer, and nothing is outright cringe on Alpha Games, it's just that there are songs that come really, really close; Rough Justice starts out with a slick, throbbing rhythm before devolving into a basic house motif on its chorus (there's a heavy breakdown that doesn't save it but sure does try). The Girls Are Fighting might as well have been written for a wrestling or MMA event, with its derivative glam beat and lyrics that are literally just about girls who are fighting (complete with a bouncer uploading video of the altercation to Worldstar). Even Traps, which is one of the most excitable songs musically, is taken down a few pegs due to the horny lyrics (and I take back what I said at the beginning of this paragraph, "There you go-go, looking like a snack" and "Lick lick lick *slurp*, lickety split" are 100% cringe). 

At the end of the day, Alpha Games at least finds Bloc Party engaged and excited in the process, which I'll take over a phoned in resignation any day of the week. Even at its silliest, there's a fun factor at play here that's admirable if not always effective. I can even overlook some of the ham-fisted lyrics since they're more often than not accompanied by music that's listenable at worst and really takes you back to 2005 at best. That said, I was never expecting Silent Alarm II in 2022, and if you are expecting that you'll be far more disappointed than I was in what amounts to a noble enough, though sometimes misguided lyrically, comeback effort by a band that could have just as easily not attempted the comeback at all.

April 29, 2022 • Bloc Party/BMG

Highlights You Should Know the Truth • Sex Magik • If We get Caught