Album: Bloc Party, Four (Frenchkiss)

As ever, Kele Okereke’s energies are divided between the political and the personal on Four, with agit-punk assertions like “ Coliseum” and “Kettling” and the contemptuous pillorying of political duplicity in “So He Begins to Lie” punctuated with more tenderly rendered emotional wrestling on tracks such as “Truth” and “Real Talk”.

Bloc Party’s touchstones remain firmly rooted in their indie upbringing: the staccato keyboard and ringing guitar of “Octopus” recalls early Blur, and “V.A.L.I.S.” is taken in the crisp artschool punk-pop style of Franz Ferdinand; but when they plunge more deeply into the soft/loud dynamics and intense barrage of “3x3”, they start to sound like Muse, but obsessed with emotions rather than UFOs.

Download: So He Begins to Lie; Octopus; Truth