Bloc Party - Kele Okereke Doubted Bloc Party Comeback

The Helicopter hitmakers embarked on a hiatus in 2009 to allow Okereke to focus on releasing a solo album, while his bandmates pursued other projects.

The rockers have since recorded new album Four, which is due out in August (12), but Okereke once doubted whether they'd ever hit the studio together again.

In a post on his official blog, he writes, "We could have come clean from the get-go but to be honest we had no idea if anything was going to come out of these sessions. There was a big question mark over whether Bloc Party were ever going to make another record again.

"We were exhausted and bored and distant from one another... So in 2010 we all did our own thing."

Okereke admits found himself longing for his bandmates last year (11), so he reached out to suggest reconvening.

He adds, "Something became clear to me, I needed to put my band back together, I missed my friends. Even though I had made a record by myself I missed the way that my band worked, how little improvisations and suggestions would then go on to spark other ideas in me like wildfire. Being in Bloc Party always forced me to think on my feet...

"It turns out that everyone had been feeling the same way so we arranged to decamp to New York and start writing our fourth record and in that time it became clear to us that the only reason to be in this band was to make the sort of music that only the four of us could make."