Album Review: Kele - The Boxer

Kele Okereke (now just Kele) has hardly made a secret of his penchant for electro and it’s little surprise that his solo debut sees him veering strongly in that direction. At the same time, Okereke’s Bloc Party legacy hasn’t been lost (though Russell Lissack’s dextrous guitar work is missed at times) and as a result The Boxer can feel like a collection of musical experiments by an artist pushing in different directions to see what works best. Fortunately, more works than doesn’t, making this a varied record that is both engaging and, at times, challenging, with less of the earnest, politicking than we’ve seen from the singer in the past.

Opener ‘Walk Tall’ beautifully sums up the blending of Kele’s past and present, his familiar chant laid over a military beat and see-sawing klaxons. It’s not beautiful, but the song’s sense of unstructured, scattergun energy is strangely compelling. ‘On The Lam’ continues the dance transition, building on basic 90s house foundations with dirty, fuzzy synths that hint at a drop into drum and bass. It’s an easy track to dismiss, initially reminiscent of that soporific monotony that Saturday night Radio 1 used to offer up in spades circa 1997, but by the third listen, its gentle acceleration starts to get under the skin.

‘Tenderoni’ – the first single off the album, released back in April – is perhaps the first immediately catchy track, though critics have been quick to pick out the similarities with the climbing, repeated synths of Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’. The comparison is slightly unfair – Kele’s vocal is some distance from Wiley’s sharp-edged rapping – but the song has the same energy and build. Lyrically, Kele retains his habit of stringing out vocals that don’t quite scan by lengthening vowels in unlikely places. On ‘All The Things I Could Never Say’, this is carried almost to extremes. “You’re making me older” he sings, but splitting the two syllables of ‘older’ into two separate words: old-derrr. When he sings the following line – “You’re making me ill” – you can’t help but wait for another “errrr”, if only for comic effect.

Despite the quality of some of the more electro tracks, most of the more immediately engaging and catchy songs on the album are the ones that nod back towards Bloc Party. ‘Unholy Thoughts’ in particular has echoes of the magic that first raised its head on Silent Alarm – an urgent, energetic riff and semi-intelligible lyrics that hint at something wonderfully unobtainable. The track dies away slightly midway through, while Kele repeats the line, “The mind is powerful”, before concluding with “But it will not work / In reverse”. The final word is underpinned by the return of the central riff, and the renewed pace can’t help but lift the spirits irrespective of whether you’ve the faintest idea what he’s on about.

When Kele’s lyrics can be understood, it’s not always a good thing. A number of tracks suffer from a clichéd wonderment - album closer ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ references sunlight kissed faces and golden days - that at times borders on nauseating. These lyrical issues aside though, this album is a refreshing change from some of Bloc Party’s later material and suggests that Kele has relished the opportunity to stretch his legs. It’s certainly a record worth investing time in, but perhaps more than that, it hints at potentially much greater things to come.