The Nextwave Sessions

It’s a little strange to recall how obstinately unified the members of Bloc Party seemed when the group’s debut album landed in 2005. Silent Alarm was the sound of four individuals – alienated and appalled at the world around them – howling for connection in an age of increasing emotional detachment. Such themes made the band sound inseparable: a tightly-bound unit that could only ever be wrenched apart by outside forces.

How peculiar, then, to consider that a decade into their career, the greatest threat to Bloc Party comes from within. Even after a triumphant headline performance at this year’s Latitude Festival, the band announced (yet another) indefinite hiatus, with only a re-release of their last studio album and an attached EP unveiled to the world before they disappeared back into their own secretive exile. Whether or not they will return once more with further material is unclear, but The Nextwave Sessions EP provides fans with five new tracks to mull over in the meantime.

Ultimately, ‘Ratchet’ is the only real standout cut on offer here, and consequently, The Nextwave Sessions feels more like an extended single rather than a complete EP. The remaining four songs are not without their merits, but offer little beyond the kicks of an average handful of B-sides. Musically, The Nextwave Sessions follows in the footsteps of its adjoining album: the stripped-back melange of 2012’s Four. Perhaps fittingly, it also shares that record’s sense of disjointedness, with each of its songs providing a shift in tone and pace as the EP continues.

To resurrect a well-worn phrase, ‘Ratchet’ is all angles: slaloming riffs, chunky bass rolls and a growl of pent-up attitude. Kele Okereke isn’t exactly railing about anything of significance this time, but such flippancy does augment the loose, scrappy charm of the music itself. His tongue-twisters (“Tell your bitch to get off my shit / Smoking on that homegrown”) are bouncy rather than gritty, which makes for a refreshing change. The group return to the garage aesthetic on the barbed ‘French Exit’, though with less success; the spiky exuberance of ‘Ratchet’ replaced by a muddle of fuzzy guitars and an ill-fitting vocal mash-up.

The songs which constitute The Nextwave Sessions are not without their merits, but offer little beyond the kicks of an average handful of B-sides.

The EP also houses two ballads in the classic, clipped Bloc Party mould, though both do outstay their welcome. ‘Montreal’ lifts the shimmering fug of Silent Alarm’s ‘Blue Light’ for its own purposes, stripping things down into a slow-burning expression of anxiety. It begins well, but as with ‘Obscene’ – on which Okereke conveys a palatable sense of heartache – it does begin to drift along rather listlessly after revealing its hand early on. Finally, ‘Children of the Future’ is a strange choice for a closing statement in musical terms, despite the fact that it features the EP’s most latent ‘message’. Its lyrical fluffiness discloses an endearing earnestness, though the song’s arrangements are restrained to the point where the group sound rather anonymous, distinguishable only because of Okereke’s exultant – if blunt – spiels.

And fundamentally, this relative musical anonymity is what makes The Nextwave Sessions sound so frustratingly tempered. The fact that Bloc Party are able to produce something so limber and unhurried is encouraging, but if this does turn out to be their final recorded statement, it’s a shame that it doesn’t match the relevance or potency of their early output. However, more intriguingly than the EP itself, this release provides an opportunity to revisit Four itself. Having recently pegged its first anniversary, it’s interesting to consider Bloc Party‘s status in the wake of the record and its subsequent tour. Although the likes of ‘Coliseum’ and ‘We Are Not Good People’ still sound messy, there’s no denying the effervescence of tracks such as ‘V.A.L.I.S.’, ‘Truth’ and ‘Octopus‘. For all its inconsistencies, Four does offer some of the group’s strongest singular moments, and consequently, it’s well worth rediscovering.

Similar To: Everything Everything, Foals

MP3: ‘Ratchet’