Bloc Party Announce Album 'HYMNS' In Store January 29

Bloc Party today announce the details of their new album HYMNS, due for release29 January 2016 via Create/Control + Infectious Music / BMG in standard CD and digital formats, as well as deluxe CD, deluxe digital and limited edition double vinyl formats featuring four extra songs. The album’s opening song, ‘The Love Within’, is available as an instant-grat to those pre-ordering the album; it is also available to stream and download now.

‘HYMNS’ is a rebirth for Bloc Party. After 16 years as a band, countless world tours and awards and four studio albums, Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack are taking it back to where it all began.

“Bloc Party started with just Kele and I, and we used to write the songs together, and we found other people and grew from that. It feels like that’s happened again,” says Russell. They started writing together, just the two of them, in 2014, and were joined at various stages by the two new members who have made Bloc Party a four-piece again: bassist Justin Harris, whom the band met in his previous guise as part of the Portland indie rock band Menomena, and drummer Louise Bartle, a 21-year-old that the pair discovered on YouTube, and who “blew us away. It’s good to have someone bringing that energy of doing it for the first time. It’s made us all excited about going forward.”

As the title suggests, the fifth Bloc Party record is about faith and devotion, but it is not, Kele insists, a religious epiphany. “I grew up in a religious house so I’m fully aware of the imagery, but I’m not Christian. It’s not something I subscribe to.” Instead, the concept came to him after seeing the author Hanif Kureishi, whomKele has admired since he was at school, talk at the Southbank Centre in London. The author of My Beautiful Laundrette and Intimacy was discussing evangelical art and how unfashionable it has become. “And that point stuck with me because it seemed like for me music had originated in a religious place. The first music I ever heard was hymns at school. I started to think, if I was going to make music that had a spiritual dimension, that was sacred to me and to the things that I held important, how would I do it?”

The result is a record that sounds like a band growing and changing, pushing new sounds via new approaches, and resulting in more free, less constricted Bloc Party. HYMNS marks a departure for the band sonically, too, with Kele andRussell trying sounds and approaches that they have never previously explored.

“It’s still a very live record,” says Russell. “Everything has been played, though it doesn’t necessarily sound like that. We take a lot of influence from electronic music, for example, and then try to bring that into a completely different environment.” Kele is astounded at the results. “What Russell is doing now is completely blowing my mind. He’s using the guitar as an instrument of white noise, as well as a melodic tool. I’m super-excited about getting this music in front of people.”Last week Bloc Party got the music in front of a UK audience for the first time, performing at Maida Vale studios to open BBC 6 Music Live, a week long series of live music broadcast from the legendary west London studios. The band’s set included new songs The Good News and Exes, alongside highlights from their considerable back catalogue including Octopus, Banquet and This Modern Love. Listen to the full performance here: http://bbc.in/1LdWBWT. Watch Exes (6 Music Live at Maida Vale October 2015): https://youtu.be/mvfYw-a0Prc

In August Bloc Party played two sold out shows in the US at The Glass House,Pomona, and The Roxy, Los Angeles, before an acclaimed appearance at FYF Fest, where they headlined The Lawn stage. Bloc Party are confirmed to return to Australia this summer to headline Falls Festival, Southbound plus sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney. See www.bloc.party for full details.

Bloc Party are:
Kele Okereke (vocals, guitar), Russell Lissack (guitar), Justin Harris (bass) and Louise Bartle (drums).

Bloc Party Upcoming Australian Performances

The Falls Music And Arts Festival
Tue 5th Jan – The Forum Melbourne
Thu 7th Jan – The Enmore Sydney
Sun 10th Jan – Southbound Festival