Kele - "Doubt"

Kele Okereke, lead singer of Bloc Party, who is one of my musical heroes will return on 13 October 2014 with his second full-length solo album, which is called "Trick". The first offering heard of the new album was premiered on Steve Lamacq's 6 Music show. The track is called "Doubt". If you have heard any of Kele's solo work, you'll find something reassuringly familiar about "Doubt". The first thing that drew me into Bloc Party's music was Kele's voice, which always sounded best on songs of longing and regret. There is an intimate quality to it, yet I have seen Bloc Party play such venues as the cavernous Alexander Palace with over 10,000 people and there is no doubt that Bloc Party were festival/big-crowd pleasers. From there Kele's solo stuff has (obviously) maintained his voice, but accompanied with some great dance beats. Often the best tracks of Kele's have a UK garage skittering type feel to them and Doubt is a good example of this. As well as the UK garage element, there's a cool deep house bassline underneath. But it once again is the voice that is the most important element, retaining that beautiful quality. Steve Lamacq talks about Kele's songwriting ability having a wonderful balance between an almost raw honesty, in combination with sounding ambiguous at the same time. It leaves a listener to draw their own meaning and poignancy to the lyrics, which is not always something that you can say with dance and electronic music on a regular basis. Anyway, "Doubt" is another great piece of work from an artist who has been so important to British music in the last decade in my opinion.