Bloc Party End Hiatus, Plan New Album

Bloc Party’s latest indefinite hiatus has apparently ended: Frontman Kele Okereke confirmed the British indie rock outfit is at work on their fifth album, previewing a new track, “Exes,” while speaking with Australian radio station Triple J, (via Stereogum).

“It’s sounding like nothing that we’ve done before but that’s what everyone always says,” Okereke told hosts Veronica and Lewis. “We’re at the writing/recording phase. We’ve started recording — I think we have about 18 [song] ideas and we’re going to lay them down properly in the next few months.”

Okereke teased one such track, “Exes,” offering an aching, 30-second acoustic snippet that featured confessional lyrics detailing an impending breakup. The musician, however, did not specify whether “Exes” will make the final cut of the album’s track list.

Okereke said the new LP already feels drastically different from its predecessors: “We’ve always had very disparate elements to our music… this record feels like an evolution of where we were. So far there’s nothing that I can compare it to really in terms of other musicians, whereas in the past I always could — we were always trying to reference something else. I feel that this is very much our own record … I’m very excited by it.”

Bloc Party will set about recording the bulk of the album this summer, after Okereke finishes touring behind his latest solo album, Trick (he’s scheduled to play Coachella after wrapping up his current trek through Australia and New Zealand). The forthcoming album will follow Bloc Party’s 2012 effort, Four, and their 2013 EP, The Nextwave Sessions.