The Return Of Bloc Party
Bloc Party are back – with a new record and a string of summer shows. The last we heard from the Party was last year, when singer Kele Okereke claimed that the rest of the band were auditioning singers behind his back. The world took this as a sign that Bloc Party were no more.
But recently Kele posted on his blog that not only were the band together, but they had a new release coming out…
“We have just finished mixing our new record. I am very proud of it. It is the best thing that we have ever done and finishing this record has taken us on quite a journey,” he wrote. “There have been babies, breakdowns, tantrums and hospitalisations but it’s finally here. We started making this record in NY in the winter of 2011. We didn’t want to let the world know so we told a lie that got out of hand but it made us laugh in the process, which brought us closer together.”
Although there has been no news from the band for months now, Kele says this was deliberate. “We could have come clean from the get go but to be honest we had no idea if anything was going to come out of these sessions. There was a big question mark over whether bloc party were ever going to make another record again. We were exhausted and bored and distant from one another. So in 2010 we all did our own thing, Gordon had a baby, Russell joined Ash, Matt built a studio in his basement with his bare hands and I moved to New York to finish a book that I had been writing for the last three years.”
Whether the new record can live up to fans’ expectations is another matter completely – but Kele doesn’t seem phased. “In the past there has been so much written about what our records have meant, so much context and back story but I am adamant that this time these songs will stand on their own. This record is the sound of four people in a room, loving what they do and doing it to the best of their ability. It is the sound that only the four of us could make and I am prouder of it than any record we have ever made.”
Bloc Party’s new album ‘Four’ is out August 20th on Frenchkiss Records.
