Bloc Party – The Garage, Glasgow 19/06/12

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Photograph by Matthew McAndrew.

Before heading to Glasgow’s Garage to see Bloc Party’s first gig in close to three years, I found myself wondering ‘just how relevant are the band these days?’ It was way back in 2005 that their debut record Silent Alarm won the NME’s album of the year award and found itself on a number of end-of-year lists, and the band followed this up with the hit-and-miss, yet generally well-received, A Weekend in the City. Intimacy, a record experimenting in electronics and song structures was the third, and seemingly final, Bloc Party release in 2008.

Following an extensive tour the band went on hiatus, one that looked likely to be permanent as frontman Kele Okereke released a solo album, The Boxer, and rumours abounded that the rest of the band were rehearsing without him and actively looking for a new singer. These stories were denied by all concerned yet it still came as something of a surprise when earlier this year the band revealed they had signed to Frenchkiss and were planning a summer tour. Then, at the end of last month we got the news a new album was on the way, titled Four, and Bloc Party teased it with song snippets in a short trailer. Despite all this action, I had my doubts about where Bloc Party would fit in today’s music scene and after three years of inaction, what would they even sound like? Hints of what Four contained came in a blog post by Okereke in which he revealed he “missed my friends” and had been listening to few records, save Led Zeppelin IV and Deftones’ White Pony. On discovering the record was produced by At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta cohort Alex Newport, everything seemed to point towards a harder sound than before.

When Okereke, Russell Lissack, Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong take to the stage they are faced by a packed out Garage, the excitement is feverish yet tempered somewhat as the band launch into the new material. The first two tracks, ‘3×3’ and ‘So He Begins To Lie’ seem to confirm a beefing-up of the Bloc Party sound; while not exactly becoming ATDI, there’s a (post) hardcore edge to these tracks, recalling the Discord Records sound of Fugazi or the thump of Glassjaw – especially in the drumming of Matt Tong, whose new rhythm and power to underpin the opening moments. Okereke rewards fan’s patience in the new material with fiery renditions of ‘Mercury’ and ‘Hunting for Witches’ before delving back into a couple more new tracks like the tightly-wound funk of ‘Real Talk’, and the tense ‘Octopus’ whose main lyric finds Okereke shouting about “losing your mind”. Other new tracks ‘Day Four’, ‘Team A’ and ‘Truth’ sound most like vintage Bloc Party and get the best reaction, but the harder edge is also noticeable in the way older tracks like ‘Helicopter’ and ‘Flux’ are approached: still recognisable, yet peppered with discernible anger. The electronic experiments have been mostly discarded, and the band play as a classic 4-piece: Okereke’s and Lissack’s dual guitars sounding extremely sharp.

If Four does reveal a harder-edged band then Kele and co. might be back stronger than before. The new songs debuted tonight seem to win fans over only when a glimpse of the Silent Alarm-era is visible, yet the soon to be Four-featured tracks strike me as a lot more exciting than the more familiar moments. A Bloc Party album that channels the brittle power and vitriol of post-hardcore? Sure, I’ll take that ahead of recycling the same old stuff any day.