Hymns

It’s a brave and successful reinvention.

Hymns finds a fully-in-control Okereke, still tangled in the electronics of his solo albums (“Rock’n’roll has got so old, just give me neo-soul,” he admits on ‘Into The Earth’) fusing with Russell Lissack’s spectral shoegaze guitars to steer one of the century’s most pioneering underground bands into more mature and absorbing, if murkier, waters.

A total contrast to 'Banquet' and 'Two More Years', die-hard fans may need to give it a few spins, but in daring to reinvent themselves, Bloc Party show an impressive evolution.

This is a stepping stone towards a new direction, and although it’s stunning in places, it’s not a triumphant renaissance.

Hymns sounds refreshed. [Feb 2016, p.73]

When the band attempts to branch out, the results are mixed.

It’s a better album than 2012’s conflicted, twilit Four, but Okereke’s new grace awaits an engine as powerful as the one enjoyed by his old gracelessness.

Too much of the album’s mid-section is plagued by Kele’s whimper, and the experimentation with guitar sounds sometimes prioritises method over melody, but there’s diamonds in the rough that shine as bright as the best of Bloc Party.

Hymns resembles a settling breath. [Feb 2016, p.94]

While Bloc Party Mk II don't quite reach the dizzying heights of hits such as Banquet or Flux, Hymns restores your faith in both their ability and ambition. [Feb 2016, p.114]

Even in Hymns’ clumsier moments, the band never try to be something they’re not.

There are glimpses of vitality on Hymns, but The Spirit is flaky.

Ultimately Hymns leaves the listener as exhausted and listless as Okereke’s downbeat lyrics (which too often read like adolescent poetry). The elements just don’t come together.

For the majority of Hymns' runtime Russell decides to play it safe and prop up Kele's uninspired musings like he's just another programmable component of an increasingly polished, synthetic entity. That the two longstanding partners can still lock together so seamlessly musically is nice and all, but it also highlights the essential ingredient missing from this half-baked album: chaos.

The good news is that "The Love Within," Bloc Party’s comeback track, an indie disco-pop hybrid that is somehow both garish and bland, is comfortably the worst song on Hymns. A little better is "So Real," which trails a Silent Alarm throwback riff over low-key soul and hangover-soothing deep house; on "The Good News," a similarly midtempo Blur pastiche, a down-and-out narrator trudges from "the Gospels of St. John" to the "bottom of a shot glass."

Themes of loss, grief, and finding meaning in one’s life are buried deep within the subtext of the record. It’s just a shame that after listening to Hymns, we’re no closer to finding any kind of revelation or spiritual bliss.

Lacking the band's prior specificity, too much of the album languishes in uncommitted sprawl.

The problem with Hymns is that it chugs along with a series of stilted niceties that lack any kind of rhythm or emotion.

What it lacks, though, is a sense of purpose, which is the precise thing this new version of Bloc Party needed it to have; they needed to make a convincing case as to why they still deserve your attention. Instead, they picked the worst possible time to lose their nerve, and turn in something so bereft of conviction and new ideas.

Hymns, unfortunately, does not mark the logical next step for the band, nor does it exactly tread new ground. Rather, it denotes a descent into self-indulgence that’s paradoxically reckless and complacent.

Only the hushed Living Lux, which closes the album in delicate velvet drifts, escapes unscathed. It is, sadly, not enough to give Bloc Party redemption.

Guitarist Russell Lissack does his best to insert some typically wiry licks where possible, but there’s none of the claustrophobia or unease that used to make Bloc Party so vital.

In short, on Hymns there’s something close to an excellent EP in amongst some of the very worst things ever to bear the Bloc Party name.

For those expecting the worst ahead of Bloc Party’s return, Hymns is likely to validate all their fears. Change may have been unavoidable after losing two influential members, but to change beyond recognition is almost an insult to the original band’s legacy.

Lead track The Love Within opens the record and remains a bizarre mess; Kele Okereke's distinct vocal parting for a mostly one-note synth line that causes a genuine flinch. All is perhaps not lost: Fortress is a somewhat pretty, minimal electro ballad while Different Drugs speaks for the entire record; flirting with a series of ideas before simply fading out of sight and mind. We expected so much more.

Bloc Party has always been capable of great and deep thought, even when moving at a high rate of speed. Without that added urgency, Hymns falls flat. [Jan/Feb 2016, p.54]

In the end, Hymns is quite a listless journey.