Bloc Party return with new song ‘Traps’ and announce sixth album ‘Alpha Games’

Bloc Party have returned with ‘Traps’, their first new music in five years, and with it have shared details of a new album and UK/European tour.

• READ MORE: Bloc Party – all the albums ranked, worst to best

‘Traps’ is the first taste of ‘Alpha Games’, the band’s follow up to 2016’s ‘Hymns’, which is released on April 29, 2022.

The single is a frenetic affair that recalls the post-punk urgency of their 2005 debut ‘Silent Alarm’. In a statement, frontman Kele Okereke explained why they chose to lead with it.

“From the moment we wrote ‘Traps’, we knew it had to be the first thing people heard from this album; playing it in soundchecks on our last tour before it was finished and hearing how it sounded in those big rooms and outdoors,” he said.

You can pre-order/pre-save/pre-add ‘Alpha Games’ here.

Album artwork for ‘Alpha Games’. CREDIT: Press

‘Alpha Games’ tracklist:

01. ‘Day Drinker’
02. ‘Traps’
03. ‘You Should Know The Truth’
04. ‘Callum Is A Snake’
05. ‘Rough Justice’
06. ‘The Girls Are Fighting’
07. ‘Of Things Yet To Come’
08. ‘Sex Magik’
09. ‘By Any Means Necessary’
10. ‘In Situ’
11. ‘If We Get Caught’
12. ‘The Peace Offering’

The band have also shared details of a UK and European tour for 2022 including a homecoming show at London’s Alexandra Palace.

It will be their first tour since their 2019 shows where they performed ‘Silent Alarm’ in full across the UK, Europe and North America.

Bloc Party UK/European tour 2022 includes dates at the following:

MAY
Tuesday 10 – La Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
Wednesday 11 – L’Aéronef, Lille, France
Thursday 12 – Cirque Royal, Brussels, Belgium
Saturday 14 – Store Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
Sunday 15 – Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany
Monday 16 – E-Werk, Cologne, Germany
Tuesday 17 – TivoliVredenburg Ronda, Utrecht, Netherlands
Thursday 26 – O2 Academy 1, Birmingham, UK
Friday 27 – Rock City, Nottingham, UK
Saturday 28 – Alexandra Palace, London, UK
Monday 30 – O2 Academy, Bristol, UK
Tuesday 31 – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, UK

JUNE
Thursday 02 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle, UK
Friday 03 – The Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, UK
Saturday 04 – O2 Academy, Leeds, UK

Okereke, meanwhile, has kept busy outside of Bloc Party since 2016 with his own solo albums – ‘Fatherland’, ‘2042‘, ‘The Waves Pt. 1’, ‘The Waves Pt. 1 Live’ – as well as the soundtrack to a musical he wrote, ‘Leave To Remain‘.

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