Alpha Games fortunately returns Bloc Party to their indie rock roots, showing off a new kind of energy for the group.
The reaction to Bloc Party’s last album, Hymns, was lukewarm to say the least. For starters, it came amidst a major lineup change. Their original bassist, Gordon Moakes, had been replaced by Justin Harris, and their original drummer Matt Tong had left a couple years prior. Tong’s replacement, Louise Bartle, did not join in time for the album. This left guitarist Russel Lissack and frontman Kele Okereke to continue the legacy of a band that was one of the biggest indie rock acts of the 2000s. However, Hymns was barely “rock” at all, and leaned heavily into the electronica that Okereke had embraced on his first couple solo albums. Was this still Bloc Party, or was it now the Kele Okereke show?
Alpha Games fortunately returns Bloc Party to their indie rock roots, showing off a new kind of energy for the group. It’s their first album recorded entirely with the new lineup, and as such, occasionally sounds like an entirely new band. Okereke himself noted “To me, it doesn’t really feel connected to anything that we’ve done in the past,” and said he wanted to move beyond Bloc Party’s past “to forge a new identity.” It may be difficult, if not impossible, to move beyond this shadow, but Alpha Games is a valiant effort.
The album’s opening track “Day Drinker” will immediately provide some relief to anyone put off by Hymns, since you’ll immediately notice it actually has guitar. It starts things off on a good note, combining frantic lyrics with heavy riffs and a great 16-beat drum break. “Traps” keeps the energy going with a simple, distorted guitar melody in the style of “One Month Off” from 2008’s Intimacy or “Kettling” from 2012’s Four. Just when you might get ready to dismiss its straightforward nature, Lissack throws in an impressive (though abrupt) solo at the end. Alpha Games doesn’t hold back from the bolder side of rock, which holds true throughout the album. “By Any Means Necessary” has great interplay between drums, bass, and dual guitars, culminating in the album’s finest instrumental break. “In Situ” has all the trappings of a classic 2000s Bloc Party song, thanks to Lissack’s distinctive guitar notes, setting it apart from the pack. The high points don’t all come from the album’s pivot back towards rock instrumentation either, as “You Should Know the Truth” and “If We Get Caught” both stand out for having noticeable backing vocals, particularly from Bartle.
Despite all these redeeming qualities, Alpha Games also has its share of baffling choices. A lot of Bloc Pary fans couldn’t get into the heavy electronica of Hymns, yet the single “Sex Magik” is built around a pulsating synthesizer and definitely sounds like it could have been on this less-than-favored album. That said, most of the winces on Alpha Games come from its lyrics. “Callum is a Snake” has a decent melody and some of the best instrumentation on the album (seriously, listen to the drums). On the other hand, its lyrics are a takedown of its titular figure with lines like “ooh, you’re a snide little fuck, a chorus of “Callum is a Snake (Snake!),” and even throwing him some hisses for good measure. “Rough Justice” starts with ominous-sounding bass and guitar before breaking into a verse that’s the closest Bloc Party have come to sounding like Ke$ha: “See, wе be kinda choosy, put us in a movie, first in the jacuzzi, gang gang all the way.” The song “The Girls are Fighting” sounds a bit like “Cyril’s Blood” from Okereke’s solo album 2042, and has the album’s best guitar solo. At the same time, it’s filled with enough chants of “hey!” to rival a corny sports cheer song, and is literally about ladies getting into a fight at a club.
Listeners may notice that Alpha Games is uncharacteristically dark and sinister-sounding for Bloc Party, and Okereke wanted the album to have a feel of “this sense of underlying menace.” This does make its lighter moments like “Of Things Yet to Come” and the appropriately-titled closing track “The Peace Offering” feel like respites, thanks to their gentler tones and more introspective (though hardly uplifting) lyrics. Some may think of Alpha Games as a more “dumbed-down” version of Bloc Party because of its cynicism and brashness, but it’s more like a new band just getting started. It may never outshine the nostalgia of Silent Alarm or A Weekend in the City, but it shouldn’t be written off either.
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