Bloc Party haven’t had all that much time to tire of the spotlight, but their rise was quick and fantastic. Their debut album, 2005’s Silent Alarm, sold over a million copies and redefined indie rock. Full of sharp angles and turbulent emotions, distinctive melodies but also driving beats, it was one of the seminal records that exploded the boundaries between electronic and guitar music, paving the way for a generation of pill-popping, synth rocking “alternative” acts that play as comfortably at Big Day Out as they do at Future Music Festival. Singer Kele Okereke became an icon overnight, and Bloc Party began headlining festivals and major music venues around the world. Silent Alarm is barely seven years old, but seven years is a long time when your band is at the top. Gordon Moakes is already an elder statesman of the global music scene, and touring is a daily grind.
“We knew it was going to be like this when we were touring the second record [A Weekend In The City, 2007]. We were returning to places and no longer having the novelty of having just one record and visiting somewhere for the first time. Like Japan, for example,” Gordon says, “I was just remembering today that it was one of the first places we ever came as a band, before we even had a record out, and I think we’ve been here now about eight times. I think the reality kicked in around that second record, that it was our job to go out and entertain people.”
The pressure of a near constant recording and touring schedule led the band to an awkward pause back in 2009. Shortly after the release of their third album, Intimacy, Kele began telling journalists that Bloc Party may take a few years to produce another album or may never record again; that at the very least they would need to spend some time apart. Drummer Matt Tong told BBC radio that they needed to gain a bit of perspective on life outside of the band.
“Hopefully, if we do reconvene at some point we’ll be refreshed with many new ideas,” Tong said.
The future of the band was uncertain, to say the least. Kele went off the produce a solo album, a critically acclaimed 2010 record called The Boxer; Russell Lissack joined Ash as their touring guitarist; Gordon formed a post-hardcore band called Young Legionnaire, releasing the single Colossus through Holy Roar Records. By 2011, the music media was speculating that Kele’s solo career had caused the final, irresolvable end of Bloc Party – conjecture that was heightened by an NME report saying that the remaining members were recording together looking for a new frontman. Kele was actually recording with his old band mates at the time, but wanted to keep it on the down low because he “didn’t know how it would turn out,” as he told The Guardian last year. It turned out just fine, Gordon says.
“I didn’t appreciate our connection until I’d gone and done something else, because actually I’d never played with another band. We’ve had lots of different drummers over the years, before we settled on Matt and the band took shape. But after that, a familiarity was established – they call it a marriage and it’s very much like that, like a family and everything. I think, having been away from it for a few years, you miss that niche that you carve out for yourself being that person from that band.”
The recording sessions took place in New York in the Northern winter of 2011/2012, with the new Bloc Party album released in August last year. The fourth record from the UK quartet, it is simply called Four. According to Gordon, it is an expression of something very essential and uncomplicated about what Bloc Party is.
“Whatever happens in the future of this band, this one was a very important one for us to make. This is the record that most sounds like the band we are in a room and how we fit together as musicians,” he explains.
“The way we left Bloc Party, it was very splintered, in many ways, from what it had been. Things were up in the air in terms of the narrative of the band, and you wouldn’t get to work out from the three records we had released where we were as people and what the music said about us. I think this record has capped it all off, really. You can hear the band on the record, you can hear how we all play together, how we choose to express ourselves when playing, and I think that’s been really valuable for me. I’ll always be able to hear that on this record.”
Critics have noted a return to form with Four, which sounds a bit like Silent Alarm in that is more guitar-driven than the intervening albums. Allmusic noted “spring-loaded guitars” and “surging riffs” while Drowned In Sound noted the influence of heavier rock bands like The Mars Volta, At The Drive-In and Queens Of The Stone Age. Not everyone loved the album, but most critics recognised it was something different. For Gordon, it is their most authentic album.
“If you compare this one to some of our records where there’s electronic instrumentation and arrangements – I’m not against that, clearly that’s just how we’ve expressed ourselves at various points – this one is more organic,” he says. “What does this band sound like when they’re in a room and they just start playing? It’s the most no-frills of our records, as though someone has just pointed a microphone at the band while we were playing. I don’t know that we’ll make another record like that.”
It has been a pleasure to bring Four to the stage, Gordon says, even considering the drawbacks of a hectic touring schedule. “We’re lucky that our band has such a distinctive personality, even just to look at us. It’s nice to take on the mantel of that again and be recognised immediately. You settle into a routine with people and you can rely on them and you’re not surprised by what might happen on stage. I’m always locking in between what Matt does and what Russel does, and that three-way relationship in the band is critical to everything we’ve written and every performance.”
And for now, that is enough. The band will leave Japan and return home for a breather, then head out again for the rest of their world tour. They’ll finish out February in Europe and the States before heading south to play a slog of Asia-Pacific dates in March, including Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and a run of gigs Down Under. After that, who knows? The future is still a little foggy, the way Gordon tells it. There is an odd finality to the way he talks about Four and while Bloc Party may write another album, it is far from certain.
“I think we probably will. We’re writing even now. The plan for this summer was to put out a four-track EP and that’s probably still going to happen, so there’s definitely a forward line. But I definitely think we’ll take a year off again and go our separate ways for a bit. That will be a pattern of our music making from now on,” Gordon says, sounding just about ready for a break, “There will be gaps.”
BY SIMONE UBALDI
