With the way Bloc Party’s music has been going recently, there was clearly some directional disparity within the band. The differences were starting to show through in the music too. ‘Intimacy’ wasn’t anything particularly special and ‘One More Chance’ was just odd. Both flirted with dancey, electro elements like an awkward teenage boy trying to chat up a girl who’s a little bit too cool for him. It’s not that Bloc Party aren’t cool, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to change their sound (quite the opposite). It’s just that so far, all of their attempts at change have sounded a bit half-hearted. So it sort of makes sense that they opted for one of those ‘it’s all going down the pan’ hiatuses.
It looks as though it could be a sensible interlude for the band though as it’s prompted some interesting side projects. I guess at the moment it’s just the sense of mystery that makes bassist, Gordon Moakes’ ‘Young Legionnaire’ interesting. So far they haven’t let any recorded material slip and they’ve only played a couple of London gigs. However with La Roux’s drummer (formerly of I Was A Cub Scout), the singer from The Automatic (formerly of Yourcodenameis:milo) and more gigs lined up -including one at Great Escape Festival in May- it’ll be nice to see what comes out of that mix. Guitarist, Russell Lissack has collaborated with Milena Mepris to form Pin Me Down, which has unfortunately just provided us with a worse version of Bloc Party, with a female vocalist (and she gets a bit irritating after a couple of songs). With no news of any projects from drummer Matt Tong, a substanstial amount of weight has been left on Kele Okereke, as the frontman of the band.
With the release of his first single Tenderoni (out 14th June), from his debut solo album The Boxer (21st June), it becomes quite clear where the musical differences lie. Tenderoni sounds like the finished product of the new sounds the vocalist was trying to inject in Bloc Party’s music. From a musical point of view alone, it looks as though Lissack was resisiting any radical change and was happy to carry on doing the same. Kele obviously had very different intentions. This first glimpse at his solo material shows a very different style emerging. With flattened, looped drums, a synth line that’s a little bit too similar to ‘Wearing My Rolex’ and not a guitar in sight, it’s certainly nothing like Bloc Party. However it fulfils the intention of the hiatus by letting new sounds emerge and allowing individual ideas to be explored without constraints. Maybe after a bit of time to play around with these new ideas alone, the full band could return and have a go at finally producing an album that gets close to the quality and excitement of Silent Alarm. Just Maybe.
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