Bloc Party have released a kaleidoscopic new music video ‘Ratchet’ before melting into a planned ‘hiatus’ of indefinite length.

The jagged urban-indie mojo of Bloc Party has seemed to diminish of late, with the band taking a lengthy breath of 4 years between the stylishly pulsating alt-dance tracks of ‘Intimacy’ (2009) and the organic, guitar grit of ‘Four’ (2012) an album that unfortunately struggled to claim relevance, its bolstering post-punk sound crying out in manic volatility to a crowd that had since progressed.

However, much to the delight of the online press, the band have just delivered ‘Rathchet’, their new music video from ‘The Nextwave Sessions EP’ (to be released on August 13th) an unsettling trip of morphing faces and glissando guitar lines. What’s even more disturbing is the news of a second break in the group’s decade long narrative, with guitarist Russell Lissack siting bi-polar relationships and even spousal disapproval. When talking to Canadian journalist, Jon Dekel, the 32 year old explained that his wife had confessed, ‘you’re life, I can’t handle it’, a deterring enough revelation, but coupled with the four-piece’s shaking friendship where ‘minor things… (cause) everyone to hate each other’, this makes a convincing case for Bloc Party to ‘wrap up this period in the band’.

Not wishing to degrade the late giants of British post-millennia indie to a sensationalist ‘break-up’, it is important to note that reactions to ‘Ratchet’s’ subtle set-list slips have been ‘insane’, reputes frontman Kele Okereke. So, despite their waning, the possibility of a final hurrah is by no means implausible… We shall see, Bloc Party headline Latitude Festival on the 19th July this summer.