Album Review: Bloc Party - "Anatomy of a Brief Romance"
Anatomy of a Brief Romance, the UK band's new seventh studio album, couldn't be any more embarrassing. It's a baffling, astonishing, and ultimate low point in the Bloc Party's entire twenty-five year career as a group.
Bloc Party, the London based band, have been around for over twenty-five years at this point. They've conquered music festivals, dominated charts, won awards, and are one of the most pivotal bands from the early 2000's to have revitalized the post punk scene out of the UK. Thanks to their debut album, Silent Alarm, which came out in 2005, the band will forever be acclaimed and applauded for their contributions to that classic, timeless album. It remains to be many a listener's favorite album of that era, where constant amount of fans form bands and record music simply because of it. On the other side of this double-edged sword, they will forever be shadowed by its success and will most likely never overcome it. Every single album that Bloc Party releases will be compared to Silent Alarm, even if the world ends (and at this rate, it certainly might soon). This isn't exactly their fault for putting out such an impactful classic but in this world we live in, we can't help ourselves. They've put out good material since, like the successful follow up A Weekend In the City, the underrated fan favorite Four (which remains to have banger after banger) or even the attempt at returning to form on their last album Alpha Games, but they simply have not scratched that itch that many Silent Alarmists have had since 2005.
Bloc Party decide to go for an interesting thematic route with their seventh album. Titled Anatomy of a Brief Romance, frontman and lead singer / songwriter Kele Okereke has decided to document the relationship with his last partner from start to finish, chronologically from the when the two have originally met to the relationship's demise. It's an interesting concept that I haven't really heard before on any particular album, so I was definitely intrigued with how the band would contribute to this theme. The lyrics throughout the album are journalistic and that of a diary, where they feel unfiltered and in the first person's perspective. On paper, this could be a unique way of putting your own perspective from a past relationship into music. But in execution, Okerke couldn't have written this any worse. The second hand embarrassment I have from the lyrics across this record is so bad. Yes, it's that bad.
To quote the infamous billionaire Taylor Swift, "now let's get into it." Right from the beginning, Okereke details the start of his relationship with "22.1.22," detailing the day he decides to pursue his interest in the gym and seeing each other in between reps, resulting in them being in a beam of light that crashes down to Earth because he didn't give him his number...? Jesus Christ. Although the writing is horribly cringey and unbelievably sappy, the moody yet simple synth and bass lines in the instrumental is actually pretty pleasant and remains a highlight in the track listing. It, like many of the tracks, remind me of the more intimate and slow moments on records like the band's second album A Weekend In the City or more obviously comparable, third album Intimacy. "Coming On Strong," the album's lead single, is also a mess lyrically (Okereke singing that he's "happy as a pig" repeatedly) but it retains one of the album's stronger hooks and guitar lines. If there's any redeeming qualities, which there is very few, it's the fact that these two songs at least sound decent instrumentally if you can somehow block out the lyrics.
"Love Bombs," another single, is certainly one of the most horrendous Bloc Party songs to date and is a great illustration as to everything that is wrong with Brief Romance. Right out of the get go, there are these inappropriately placed trap beats with Okereke reciting to himself that he's "thinking about scaling your fence and leaving a single red rose by your door." Oh, dear reader, it gets much, much worse. Next, he says that he's "thinking about learning the accordion and serenading you under your window." Oh Kele, "Weird Al" Yankovic you are not. Funny enough, it's not even the most appalling line on the album. On the next track, "Pigwig," which is another huge abomination, we get this gem of a line about one experience he had with his new romantic partner: "On the fourth date, he plays a trick on me. I go up to his floor, but he's playing dead, lying still in the hallway. I panic, but then I see his smile." Right after I heard that line for the first time, my eyes rolled back into my head so hard, I questioned whether a lobotomy was the wisest choice to get me out of this situation I've drummed myself up in. Russell Lissack's shifty and punchy guitar riffs are refreshing to hear but it can't make up for the rest of this song's Earth shattering atrocities.
There are flashing moments throughout the album where if I squint hard enough, I can maybe see flecks of what made Bloc Party such a notable band. Some of Lissack's guitar work comes to mind, whose highlighted moments are very very few and far between, where it feels like even he can't expand his sound and shred if he wants to. The songs are too confined, calculated, and muddy for his guitar work to flourish. The same goes for Okereke. As a vocalist, Okereke is pretty good at times and can be versatile if he wants to. Throughout the record though, he struggles to give us great vocal deliveries due to him plainly and dully reciting much of his countless diary entries. Unfortunately there are just too many heavy handed moments across this album where the group squanders any opportunity to provide something compelling or even memorable. There are no hits here, there are no memorable lines or riffs or choruses to speak of. The album's excruciating runtime feels almost double its forty-eight minute length. It's such a difficult and exhausting listen, that I can't even give myself the energy to go track by track in this review, detailing each and every horrible line and decision the band makes. That would take too long and this isn't Jimmy Fallon's Holiday Seasoning (although I wish it was sometimes; at least that one is an entertaining train wreck).
All of that to say that Anatomy of a Brief Romance is the lowest point in Bloc Party's career by a mile. It makes their last album, the so-so Alpha Games, seem like a masterclass by comparison. Despite all the lyrical blunders from Okereke over the years, at least the band has had solid songs and fun performances to back them up. There's a reason why I return to 2013's Four time and time again. Yes, it's an album full of ridiculous lines and jokes like "I was feeling my breast / er, no, it was a turkey breast..." but it has really enjoyable tunes to back them up like the explosive "Kettling," the dancey "V.A.L.I.S.," or the mechanically precise yet ultimately satisfying "Octopus." I would legitimately commit a low-grade crime in order to listen to anything from Four over this. This album has none of that pizazz. Not even close! If there's something positive to say about Brief Romance is that the album's thematic premise is interesting and commendable but only on the surface, as well as the decision to have diary-like lyrics. But in execution, this results in the band's worst material in their career. At least they can only go up from here, but the fact that this is the same musical project that released Silent Alarm is truly, jaw droppingly astonishing.
My Rating: 2 / 10
Favorite Songs: "Coming On Strong," "22.01.22"
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