Bloc Party: a breakup, in chronological order

Anatomy Of A Brief Romance begins with a timestamp and ends with 'Eulogy'. Over fourteen tracks, in sequence, Bloc Party trace a single relationship from the initial glance to the last farewell, without flashbacks and without metaphors substituting for emotions. Kele Okereke has described it as the most personal record of his career, and the album confirms this: the ambiguity this band once dealt in has been removed, and what remains is a man stating precisely what occurred. The issue is that stating precisely what occurred takes just under fifty minutes, and not all of it justifies its inclusion.

Bloc Party have consisted of Okereke and guitarist Russell Lissack since 1999, when they met in London and formed a band that went through several names before settling on this one. Silent Alarm made them, A Weekend in the City (2007) and Intimacy (2008) sustained them, and then the ground shifted: Matt Tong departed, Gordon Moakes followed, and the group rebuilt around drummer Louise Bartle and, since 2023, bassist Harry Deacon. Hymns (2016) and Alpha Games (2022) were the records of that rebuild. They are one of the key bands of the 2000s post-punk revival, which is part of what makes a seventh album like this a surprise. Okereke wrote it, and chose to release it under the band's name rather than his own.

Trevor Horn handled the mixing and contributes keyboards. Korda Marshall served as executive producer, Alex McArthur took on engineering duties, Alan Clark performs on Hammond organ, piano and strings, while the label is Contagious. The most important thing is who's present in the room. Deacon's earliest recordings alongside the band appear throughout this, performing on synth bass, glockenspiel, keyboards and percussion, and the album depends on synthesisers more heavily than any prior Bloc Party record. The spark was 'Lagoon Blue', penned and tracked in 2023 and then left waiting until the remainder of the album could catch up to it.

The sound is colder and cleaner than the band's early work. Drum machines hold the tempo back, synths sit ahead of the guitars, and Lissack spends much of the record disrupting rather than leading: a scrape, a hard chord, the noise of a room where the electronics have been left running. Horn's mix keeps the low end tight and Okereke's voice forward, near enough that you hear him take a breath.

'22.01.22' takes its name from the day Okereke met the person the album concerns, and it begins with electronics and a beat restrained enough to feel like an initial exchange. No pyrotechnics, a conscious choice from a group whose early records kicked off at a sprint. 'Coming On Strong' is where Lissack shows up, euphoric while glancing backward. 'Lagoon Blue' is the finest track present: a slow, yearning ballad featuring a chorus that opens fully. You can hear why it launched the entire project.

Then the chronology begins to tell. 'Muscleworks' places a bright hook and a key change alongside a lyric about disquiet, with Lissack's guitar sawing beneath, and it succeeds. 'Worst Birthday Ever' is the shortest track on the album and the first in which the relationship is beyond saving. 'Not Your Problem' is the bitter one, all resentment and no room to move. 'Now We Can't Be Friends' has the strongest chorus on the record, with cold arpeggios running underneath.

'Rotherhithe' is the one that will endure beyond the album: the most sorrowful moment here, and its dramatic scope stems directly from Okereke's musical theatre background, including the Leave To Remain project in 2019. What fails is the middle. Arranged strictly chronologically, the record must allocate a song to each phase, and the stretch from 'Love Bombs' through 'Clark Kent' is where that obligation becomes apparent, glossy pop repeating the same sentiment three times. By 'Stories', neither the complaint nor the pace has shifted in twenty minutes, and candour begins to seem like repetition.

If you came to this band for Silent Alarm's guitars, this won't be the comeback you were hoping for. It's for those who kept the bleak side of Intimacy on repeat, and for anyone wanting a breakup album that keeps its receipts straight; it's closer to late-period Depeche Mode than to Bloc Party's own first two records. Two and a half, because 'Lagoon Blue' and 'Rotherhithe' are tracks this band should still be performing in ten years, and they're carrying an album that spends its remaining forty minutes explaining itself. Fourteen songs was a choice, not a necessity.

The tracklist

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