Bloc Party made a lot of noise with their debut album, Silent Alarm, from 2005. It’s a record that has come to be regarded as one of the towering achievements of the unfairly reviled “landfill indie” era.

But the very fact that the LP was an instant classic also laid the groundwork for the band’s undoing. Having started at the top, the only way was down.

Fast-forward 21 years and they have returned with one of their most engaging records since Silent Alarm in the form of the infectious, emotive and hook-laden Anatomy of a Brief Romance.

Paradoxically, it is also perhaps the album least concerned with being a Silent Alarm 2.0 or replicating its mix of staccato Joy Division guitars and post-Y2K industrial gloom.

The biggest change is how explicitly Bloc Party are engaging with the personal life of Kele Okereke, their lead singer. Early in the band’s career his forte was beautifully oblique lyrics: music big on heartache but vague on specifics. This was because he was a gay man who, amid the hurly-burly of the early-21st-century London indie scene, had misgivings about speaking publicly about his private self.

That was entirely understandable. In 2005 the spectre of British tabloids “outing” celebrities was still a recent memory. Just as significantly, Okereke was a shy twentysomething who wanted to offer up only so much of himself for public consumption.

His reticence contributed to the mystery that infused bittersweet bangers such as Banquet, a song about physical attraction that glossed over the details.

But now, at 44, he has gone from demure to diaristic with the most personal LP of his career. Anatomy of a Brief Romance chronicles the end of an 11-year relationship and the 12-month romance that followed, as it went from wild joy to unbearable heartache, filtering those feelings through the shiny pop production of the band’s big-name collaborator Trevor Horn.

We’re not in 2005-era Camden any more, as signalled from the outset by the LCD Soundsystem-style punk funk of the album’s opener, 22.01.22. “The 22nd of January 22 … that was the first time I laid eyes on you,” Okereke croons over a tentative array of bleeps and beats that Horn has buffed so brightly you can almost see your reflection in them.

With that, the starter pistol has been sounded on an intensely frank account of a rebound romance that got serious quickly, an escalation reflected in the driving funk and urgent guitars of Coming on Strong (“my baby comes on strong / it’s okay, it’s what I want”).

The tracks that follow are a jet-fuelled emotional rollercoaster as Okereke chronicles new love through a staccato of shredding fretwork and half-rapped vocals (Love Bombs), Pet Shop Boys-style electro-balladry (Pigwig) and the brilliantly fraught synth-pop of Worst Birthday Ever.

One of the record’s most noticeable elements is how Okereke addresses his lyrics to another man: sad to say, in 2026 it’s still unusual to hear indie singers talk about same-sex romance.

The other striking aspect of Anatomy of a Brief Romance is how quickly joy turns to sorrow as things go off the rails. It’s a plunge that begins in earnest with Worst Birthday Ever. “You said there was nothing I could do to kill the feeling that flows through you,” he laments. “What, you don’t remember?”

That descent into heartache finally reaches rock bottom, and Okereke learns to live again with Eulogy, the album’s closer, which borrows the guitar line from U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name as a comfort blanket to wrap around a song that acknowledges the agony of a painful break-up but picks itself up and proceeds towards the daylight.

This new Bloc Party may not be to all tastes. The obliqueness that was a draw to many fans has been replaced by Okereke not just wearing his hopes and fears on his sleeves but delving into the warp and weft of a relationship, like an oversharing friend who could do with taking a long walk and bingeing on mindfulness podcasts.

It’s a lot, especially when you factor in Horn’s less-than-subtle production. It may be too much if Bloc Party are just that jangling indie band you pogoed to back in the day.

For better or worse, then, this is Bloc Party but different. Having spent too long trying to re-create the magic of their debut, a drastic change in Okereke’s personal circumstances has led him to take a different path entirely, one that will delight some followers and leave others wondering if it was worth the price.

Either way, Bloc Party have never sounded less like themselves and rarely had so much to say.