Culture
24 Nov 21

Bloc Party return with new single 'Traps', announce details of 2022 album

Bloc Party's first album in six years, 'Alpha Games', will arrive on April 26th, 2022.

Bloc Party have shared brand new single, ‘Traps’ - which marks a taster from their upcoming new record.

Produced by Nick Launay & Adam Greenspan (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, IDLES), ‘Traps’ is a return to the sound of the band’s earlier material.

“From the moment we wrote ‘Traps’, we knew it had to be the first thing people heard from this album; playing it in soundchecks on our last tour before it was finished and hearing how it sounded in those big rooms and outdoors,” lead singer Kele Okereke explained.

'Traps' is taken from Alpha Games, the band’s sixth studio album and first since 2016’s Hymns. The project is set to arrive on 29th April 2022.

The English rock band is composed of Kele Okereke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, sampler), Russell Lissack (lead guitar, keyboards), Justin Harris (bass guitar, keyboards, saxophones, backing vocals) and Louise Bartle (drums, percussion). Former members include Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes, who left the band in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Their brand of music, whilst rooted in rock, retains elements of other genres such as electronica and house music. The band was formed at the 1999 Reading Festival by Okereke and Lissack.

The outfit went through a variety of names before deciding on Bloc Party in 2003. Bloc Party got their break by giving BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and Franz Ferdinand's lead singer, Alex Kapranos, a copy of their demo 'She's Hearing Voices'. In February 2005, the band released their debut album Silent Alarm, to critical and commercial acclaim.

Listen to 'Traps' below:

The news comes alongside a new UK and European tour through May and June 2022, including a date at London’s Alexandra Palace. No Irish date has been announced yet, unfortunately.

Bloc Party tour dates:

MAY 2022
10 La Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
11 L’Aéronef, Lille, France
12 Cirque Royal, Brussels, Belgium
14 Store Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
15 Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany
16 E-Werk, Cologne, Germany
17 TivoliVredenburg Ronda, Utrecht, Netherlands
26 O2 Academy 1, Birmingham, UK
27 Rock City, Nottingham, UK
28 Alexandra Palace, London, UK
30 O2 Academy, Bristol, UK
31 O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, UK