Bloc Party albums ranked from worst to best
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(Credits: Far Out / Emily Marcovecchio)
The dawn of the 2000s was always going to be a strange time for rock and roll. With grunge coming and going in the back half of the 1990s, the world had entered the new millennium with many different facets of rock and roll to choose from, but nothing truly blew up. Whether people were on the fence of either nu-metal or pop-punk back in the day, Bloc Party was the kind of group that only came once in a generation.
Whereas The Strokes may have kickstarted the indie-flavoured version of garage rock, Bloc Party was a completely different animal. As much as they relied on garage rock to get them to where they needed to go, some of their best moments felt like taking the best of The White Stripes and combining it with the spirit of Gang of Four half the time.
Then again, not every one of their albums was necessarily created with the same love and affection. Regardless of how much time was put into all of them, there are certainly some that stand out more than others, whether it’s their humble beginnings or the kind of songs that make people question why they even bothered getting on the hype train, to begin with.
But unlike most groups that find their sound and stick with it, it’s sometimes better to go Bloc Party’s route and have a different collection of styles to choose from. Sure, not all of them hit the listener in the exact same way, but it’s every artist’s dream to at least run the gamut of genres whenever they can.
Every Bloc Party album ranked:
6. Hymns (2016)
Any band that goes through an intense band shakeup usually has their work cut out for them on the next project. Either this is the moment where the critics get proven wrong, and you come through with something great, or everything will be more than a little bit shaky from the word go. While there was at least some hope for Bloc Party to return to the kind of nervy band that most people knew, half of what Kele Okereke came up with here just seems tame by comparison.
Then again, it might not be Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes’s departure, which is the problem here. Across the album, this feels like a neutered version of the sound they were known for, especially when they start bringing in more electronic elements and making themselves sound like an R&B group that had all the soul stripped out of them. Bloc Party did have the ability to make something great, but a lot of that internal drama seemed to turn up on this record as well.
5. Alpha Games (2022)
For many Bloc Party fans, Hymns was as good a sign as any to drop off the bandwagon. It was clear that the group would be different, but not many imagined that the fall would have been too hard. Good things come to those who wait, though, and on Alpha Games, they actually dropped all of their electronic-gospel schtick and seemed to be climbing up the mountain once again.
While Alpha Games isn’t giving their old material a run for its money in any capacity, it’s still a decent record that got them back in touch with their punk-leaning roots on tracks like ‘Callum is a Snake’. There’s still a long way to go before they start sounding anywhere close to their old selves, but for everyone who switched to Algiers in the meantime, this at least shows Okereke steering them in the right direction again.
4. Intimacy (2008)
Any band establishing a sound will usually have that one strange album in their discography. There comes a point where no one can play the same kind of tune for the rest of their lives, and going in a new direction sometimes is what everyone needs to collectively recharge their batteries. While The Strokes had First Impressions of Earth, Intimacy is Bloc Party’s off-the-wall record, and it actually had more than a few highlights than people remember.
Although ‘Mercury’ was more than a little bit repetitive even by their standards, hearing them embrace the sounds of alternative rock into their sound actually goes down very smoothly. Then again, only having a year to work on the album does make it seem a little bit half-finished in some places, as if their idea for some tunes just had got finished because someone told them that their recording time was almost up. Still a quality record, but if it had just a little more time in the oven, it could have been the record that matched their debut.
3. Four (2012)
While Intimacy is definitely a dark horse in Bloc Party’s discography, it’s understandable that not everyone is going to gravitate towards that sound. For a band that was all about getting more in touch with the roots of rock, bringing in more electronic textures and a drum machine seems like a foreboding prediction of things to come nowadays. Experimental albums are made for a reason, and now that they were recharged, Four seemed to be where the guitars came roaring back to life.
Though the guitars didn’t necessarily go anywhere on the last record, hearing them upfront on this album was much more in line with what the guitar nerds of the world were looking for. Now, with more time to work, songs like ‘So He Begins To Lie’ actually have a lot more punch, as if the group had been playing the song for years and only just now got around to recording it. Whereas most groups could be suffering from burnout by the time their fourth record comes out, this is the kind of fun album that works solely because you can hear them having fun making it. If only we had been given a heads-up that we were about to hit a brick wall a few months later.
2. A Weekend in the City (2007)
Every single band usually has to contend with making their sophomore album under intense pressure. Especially if the first record set the world on fire, it’s not like the label was going to give them that much time to recuperate so they could finetune their songs. No, they needed to strike while the iron was hot, and even though A Weekend in the City is ever-so-slightly below their debut, they never let up for a second.
Compared to the youthful exuberance of Silent Alarm, this record is a lot more careful in terms of arrangements, almost like every song was poured over for weeks at a time before finally being committed to tape. The sequel is usually never as good as the original, but A Weekend in the City does exactly what any follow-up is supposed to do: refine what made the first record great and leave the listener wanting more for where you’ll go next.
1. Silent Alarm (2005)
Some of Bloc Party’s usually suffer from the group being a touch out of sync with each other. Whether it’s the guitars not being out in full force or the band switch-up, there are those few signs on every project where it feels like everything is kept at a distance. When they hit the ground running on their debut, though, Silent Alarm felt like a full-frontal assault on the senses from the moment it started.
A year before Arctic Monkeys broke through, this was the true introduction to England’s answer to the garage-rock revival, complete with songs like ‘Helicopter’ that could have been ripped directly from Gang of Four’s entertainment. If anything, this album should be commended for blessing the world with hearing Matt Tong, who turns every single track into an exercise in drumming finesse. Sure, A Weekend in the City is probably the more balanced record sonically, but there’s something about that debut naivety that has turned Silent Alarm into a timeless piece of art.
