The Boxer

In many ways you'd be forgiven for thinking that erstwhile Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke is having his mid-life crisis 20 years too early. For starters, he’s dropped his surname (à la Kylie and Madonna), secondly he’s spending all his free time working on getting biceps as big as Popeye's and thirdly (and most importantly) he's ditched his razor-sharp indie riffage for pure, undiluted '90s dance beats.
As gambles go, this one mightn't be up there with Bowie's Tin Machine and Garth Brooks turning into Chris Gaines, but it's definitely in that zone. Thankfully, Kele knows exactly what's he's doing, and his record is a hook-laden, insanely inventive piece of work that splices together '80s-era Depeche Mode with Talk Talk and adds a large smattering of trance in for good measure. There's are plenty of highlights on the record, but album opener 'Walk Tall' and recent single 'Tenderoni' in particular are epic floor-fillers that effortlessly prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was right about hanging up his guitar for a while.