Three Stars
★★★☆☆
When I heard that Kele Okereke was intending to release his second solo album, Trick, I was excited, mainly because I knew it would be better than his last album offering. That isn’t saying much — nothing could have been worse than Bloc Party’s final album Four (2012). Unless, that is, he chose to continue his dire lyrical choices to screech “we’re not good people” over and over again in a never ending verbal tumult as he did on that album’s closing track.
Firstly, the album as a whole is not bad. For Bloc Party fans, it may be a hard pill to swallow: he has completely abandoned his rock-façade. Trick is ten tracks of electronic dance, a continuation of the route he chose with his first solo album, 2010’s The Boxer.
In comparison to the final work of his last band, his lyrics are greatly improved, but they do lack some of the magic that drew so many to Bloc Party’s indie tones in 2005. Their subject matters remain typical of Okereke: laments of loneliness and isolation, set against electronic beats and synths.
For me they don’t have that same feeling of deep emotion, rather a critique of a feeling felt in a moment. This said, in comparison to other electronic and dance tracks, the songs are lyrically more developed. The album successfully combines affective lyrics with a great dance beat. ‘Like We Used To’ and ‘Coasting’ and ‘Closer’ particularly emphasises this fusion and are the albums highpoints, aided to by the use of some great female vocals.
It is wrong to think of music as purely a com-modity to be traded, but I imagine that when the end of week charts are released, the album will do well. It combines the best parts of his two careers and his experience in both indie and electronic work, attracting two audiences.
Personally, it is refreshing to be able to listen to an album that has some decent lyrics. However, you can still whip it out at predrinks or dance along to it in a club and not get weird looks — like you might with some of the darker Bloc Party tracks.
The only downside of the album is that the sound of each song seems to blur into one. Kele and his band seem to have taken the ‘one-size- fits-all’ approach to both lyrics and music. However, the album as a whole serves well for easy listening, background music and as club music.
Kele has risen out of the ashes of the demise of Bloc Party, and presented listeners with an album that proves his electronic style has matured and he can establish himself in his own musical niche away from the band that projected him to fame.
