In Before Midnight, the final film in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy, Julie Delpy’s character poses a question to her husband, 20 years after the two fell in love in Vienna: “If we were meeting for the first time today on a train, would you find me attractive?” It’s the kind of existential head-scratcher that makes romance, and its end, infinitely fertile artistic ground. Twenty years and change since many of us fell in love with Bloc Party, the arrival of a new album might have you asking a similar question: If we first encountered them as they are today, would we still fall in love with them? In Linklater’s film, it’s a bittersweet paradox. In this case, it’s a no-brainer: almost certainly not. Even for the Bloc Party faithful, Anatomy of a Brief Romance, framed as the document of a relationship’s dissolution, might prove to be a breakup album in more ways than one.
Anatomy of a Brief Romance is Bloc Party’s second breakup album, after 2008’s Intimacy. But this one is more direct, giving us a chronological, blow-by-blow account of an ill-fated couple, one half of which is singer and frontman Kele Okereke. We start with a song named after the day they first locked eyes, “between reps” at the gym (“22.01.22”). We follow them through the dizzying honeymoon period (“Coming On Strong,” “Love Bombs”). We’re there when things get ugly (“Worst Birthday Ever”), and when it all crashes and burns (“Now We Can’t Be Friends,” “Moving On,” “Eulogy”). Okereke’s tale, we’re told, is nothing but the truth. “Every lyric you’re hearing on this record was something that actually happened to me,” he says in the press release. “I had to tell the story, from start to finish.”
No score yet, be the first to add.
What horrors did he endure to inspire this courageous tell-all account? How will his trials and tribulations lend clarity to our own? And is there any chance that maybe, just maybe, after 20 years of hiatuses, lineup changes, and limp comebacks, this indie-rock soap-opera is the thing that finally gets Bloc Party back on track?
It is not. Bloc Party, the once promising new kids on the block of UK indie rock, have fallen further and further with each record since Silent Alarm, their 2005 debut and the only real reason we’re still talking about them. Anatomy of a Brief Romance marks a new low, 14 cuts of deep-if-you’re-14 lyrics describing a life experience that, while understandably a big deal for its narrator, is actually pretty unremarkable. You meet a guy at the gym, you date, it doesn’t work out, he keeps watching your Instagram stories after you break up. Sally Rooney could probably make it work in a novel. Here, though, the story is so tritely told, so infinitely beneath artists of Bloc Party’s capabilities, it seems remarkable no one stepped in and stopped it.
Let’s start with those Instagram stories. We hear about them in a song that explores the different meanings contained in its title: “Stories.” The chorus is a call and response: “You say you’re going away, but you still keep watching… my stories.” I mean, sure, who among us hasn’t gotten a shameful kick out of seeing a certain someone in that “seen by” list? With a bit of a wink and dry wit, this could be a nice riff on the indignities of romance in the digital age. But there’s no humor or self-awareness here, just a man in his 40s spilling the weakest tea imaginable. And there’s more. Okereke runs with the motif, expanding into the most basic wordplay and metaphor. “Turns out you’re not the chapter I thought you’d be,” he pouts. “More like a footnote. In my… story.” Burn.