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Pitchfork 5.2/10 Taking cues from their early records, Bloc Party’s sixth album successfully marries post-punk with dance grooves—and confusingly devotes a lot of its energy to spite.
A.V. Club F Alpha Games is the sound of a band trying to reignite its original sense of passion and intensity, to diminished results.
NME 3/5 ‘Alpha Games’ sees Bloc Party still championing the ’00s scene that they came up in, but there’s not a hint of nostalgia in sight. With a renewed vigour and the desire to keep things moving, this sixth album could soundtrack a new generation of indie discos.
Dork 3/5 The angst and anxiety that has come with those two decades lends it a deliciously spicy edge that saves it from being too much of a safe path mercifully.
DIY 3.5/5 Their despair at the state of the world is tangible.
All Music 3.5/5 Bloc Party have been around long enough and explored enough styles that Alpha Games' musical homecoming isn't a retreat. More often than not, it feels essential.
Gigwise 8/10 Alpha Games is an excellent return, far more accessible and focused than many of their previous efforts.
Clash 8/10 ‘Alpha Games’ is an exciting return with addictive hooks and array of infectious album stand outs.
Mojo 3/5 Seventeen years since Silent Alarm, BP retain a youthful fixation with personal drama, biting lyrics and angular guitars, laced with keyboards.
Loud and Quiet 7/10 With guttural guitars and a sense of anger that is an inevitable product of its times, Alpha Games is a simultaneous glance over the shoulder to the band’s rockier roots and a dynamic lurch forward to the punkier pull of the present.
Pop Matters 8/10 Alpha Games is a superb return to form for Bloc Party, much-awaited, and an excellent entry to a fantastic and idiosyncratic discography.
The Telegraph 3/5 Alpha Games should please their established fanbase, but Bloc Party still sound strangely ambivalent, trapped between the visceral thrill of lean, modern guitar music and their doubts about its form and function.
Uncut 5/10 Waspish, charismatically delivered lyrics are let down by workaday instrumental backing, as if once the spleen is vented, the tune becomes something of an afterthought.
