Albums to watch

Alpha Games

Bloc Party

Alpha Games

Sixth album and fist in six years from the London-based indie rock band produced by Nick Launay and Adam Greenspan

ADM rating[?]

6.6

Label
BMG Rights Management
UK Release date
29/04/2022
US Release date
29/04/2022
  1. 8.0 |   Clash

    Alpha Games’ is an exciting return with addictive hooks and array of infectious album stand outs
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  2. 8.0 |   Gigwise

    Who doesn’t love a good redemption story?
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  3. 8.0 |   PopMatters

    Alpha Games is a superb return to form for Bloc Party, much-awaited, and an excellent entry to a fantastic and idiosyncratic discography
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  4. 7.0 |   All Music

    Frequently, Alpha Games sounds like the album they could have released after Silent Alarm if they hadn't been so determined to escape the constraints of the so-called angular scene they were initially associated with
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  5. 7.0 |   Northern Transmissions

    They say we become products of our environment and while Okereke states ‘Alpha Games’ was born out of “an ugly time”, Bloc Party’s new album is anything but ugly, although it’s not an example of beauty either – it’s somewhere in-between
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  6. 7.0 |   DIY

    Their despair at the state of the world is tangible
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  7. 7.0 |   musicOMH

    At times harking back to the glorious early days of Silent Alarm, there’s evidence that the band’s line-up changes have reinvigorated them
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  8. 7.0 |   Loud And Quiet

    As a whole Alpha Games is a record defined by its sleazy punk theatrics: jagged guitar lines, campy vocal delivery and lyrics about “the boom boom room” and “strutting round here in those pum pum shorts”
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  9. 6.0 |   NME

    This sixth album sees the band's 2.0 line-up tear through political discontent with a banging soundtrack as they find out exactly where they sit in 2022
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  10. 6.0 |   Mojo

    BP retain a youthful fixation with personal drama, biting lyrics and angular guitars, laced with keyboards. Print edition only

  11. 6.0 |   Dork

    The angst and anxiety that has come with those two decades lends it a deliciously spicy edge that saves it from being too much of a safe path mercifully
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  12. 5.8 |   A.V. Club

    Alpha Games is the sound of a band trying to reignite its original sense of passion and intensity, to diminished results
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  13. 5.2 |   Pitchfork

    Taking cues from their early records, Bloc Party’s sixth album successfully marries post-punk with dance grooves—and confusingly devotes a lot of its energy to spite
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  14. 5.0 |   Uncut

    Waspish, charismatically delivered lyrics are let down by workaday instrumental backing. Print edition only


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