As a particularly nostalgic millennial, some of my best moments were spent dancing—often underage drinking—to Bloc Party in the park with friends, after long stretches of dancing to them alone in my room. Bloc Party was inherently subversive—different without ever needing to say so. You either got the subversion or you didn’t. It was meant to be found by the people who needed it, not thrown in your face. And I suppose there’s something to be said about embodying subversion rather than performing it.
What made them compelling was their logic and self-awareness. “Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day,” their website once read.
There’s a lot of back and forth about what kind of music Bloc Party makes. Some call it post-Britpop, others say indie rock, dance rock, or post-punk revival. Whatever the label, the consensus is that it’s just really fucking good music. As we mark the 20-year anniversary of the band’s debut album Silent Alarm, I wanted to pair a few scents with their musical brilliance.
When Bloc Party arrived, they brought a particular kind of energy with them—urgent, sharp, impossible to ignore. Press attention came quickly. The band, founded by Kele Okereke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, sampler) and Russell Lissack (lead guitar, synthesizers), originally included Gordon Moakes (bass) and Matt Tong (drums), both of whom have since left. Okereke and Lissack had reconnected at the 1999 Reading Festival and decided to start a band after an unexpected run-in, though they’d actually attended school together years earlier.
Silent Alarm, along with the earlier Bloc Party EP, received strong reviews—Pitchfork gave the debut albulm an 8.9 and named it Best New Music. But while fans embraced the music, the press was often less kind to Okereke. It’s impossible to talk about Bloc Party’s impact on music (and me) without acknowledging him.
During the first album’s press cycle, Okereke was repeatedly asked about his race and sexuality. For some journalists, this became almost as big as the music—like they were shocked someone like him, someone Black and queer, could exist in the space and make rock music. In a 2014 article for Vice, Okereke wrote, “We quickly identified that there was a conservatism in indie rock, a purism that seemed to belie quite a dangerous logic. Rock music is one of the few areas in music where it seems diversity is not to be encouraged... We were told that things would be hard for us because indie rock was a predominantly straight white male world, so we were as surprised as any that our records charted and our tours sold out. We realized that the fans didn’t seem to have a problem with the color of my skin or sexual orientation. It was rock journalists, always white male rock journalists, that seemed to have an issue with it.”
Throughout the piece, he speaks to his experience navigating the indie rock world—being labeled difficult, the rigidity of how race, gender, and sexuality were treated, and the contrast he found performing in the dance and electronic scenes. At the time of writing that article, he was releasing his second electronic solo album, Trick.
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The world of music, especially rock, looks drastically different in 2025 than it did in 2005. During that first album cycle, Q Magazine, one of the UK’s biggest music publications, outed him. At the time, I was just a queer teenager in Chicago, without any queer adults in my life. My only images of queerness were what I saw on TV: The L Word, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Not exactly the epitome of alternative. I didn’t even know Okereke was queer. I just connected with the music. I felt seen in a way I couldn’t explain. I could dance, have fun, feel different. It was cool and edgy and smart and quick, all at the same time.
On some level, it gave me what I needed: queerness that simply existed. Not as performance, not as announcement—just there, even if I didn’t know it yet. Anyways, with that in mind, here are your scent pairings for Bloc Party’s discography from a millennial who never left her hipster phase behind.
Silent Alarm (2005)
Few albums are as close to perfect as Silent Alarm—all hits, no skips. Certified gold in Europe within 24 hours and selling over a million copies worldwide, it hit number seven on Billboard's Independent Albums chart in the U.S. It features Bloc Party’s most recognizable track, “Banquet,” and, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful romance songs ever written: “This Modern Love.” That track perfectly captures the feeling of queer love—pure and consuming, free from the norms heterosexuality tries to imprint on us. It makes you want to laugh, scream, cry, and dance all at once. Which might just be me, but it’s also how I’d sum up most of Bloc Party’s music: dance so hard you disappear. “Banquet,” on the other hand? A hot, sweaty, sexy mess. Gay disco for alternative freaks.
Silent Alarm is sharp and punchy, but deeply melodic. It’s dirty and perverse, yet warm and romantic. For a luxe scent pairing, I suggest Troubled Spirits by Paraphrase (formerly Libertine Fragrance) and No. 19 Eau by Blomb Fragrance (affordable pick). Both are perfect for the dance floor, the bar, the bedroom, or wherever you feel most like yourself.
Troubled Spirits blends oakwood, orange zest, damask rose, vanilla, aged patchouli, and amber. It opens boozy, almost bourbon-like, then softens into a warm, rosey amber. It smells like a cool breeze on your flushed face after dancing in a dive bar. It’s sweet and worn-in, with about five hours of wear. A little messy, a little romantic, and maybe just a little dangerous. Let’s make good trouble and dance our asses off.
No. 19 Eau is one of my favorite affordable picks. It wears closer to the skin, with notes of anise, black pepper, and juniper berry. Think soft spice, subtle sweetness, and a lived-in finish. It lasts around four to five hours, with faint traces lingering well past that. It reminds me of “This Modern Love” in scent form—spicy and tender, bold but familiar. It doesn’t perform for attention; it just exists in its own kind of intimacy. A scent for the person you already feel safe getting lost with.
A Weekend in the City (2007)
The dancing doesn’t stop—A Weekend in the City just dances differently. Compared to the debut, this album moves faster and leans heavily into electronic elements. Synths pulse and build, the production feels fuller, and lyrically, it's deeper and darker. One of my favorite songs, “Hunting for Witches,” explores xenophobia—specifically the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment following the terrorist attacks on London’s transportation system in July 2005 and September 11th. The lyrics are haunting, reflecting on how fear is used to keep a population docile, orderly, submissive. Other themes include drug use and emotional fallout (“The Prayer”), queer longing and unrequited love (“I Still Remember”). That song became Bloc Party’s highest-charting single in the U.S., which still blows my mind—so many people were unknowingly singing along to a track about queer desire and its limits. Also, this album includes my favorite Bloc Party song: “Flux.”
For a luxe scent pairing, Black Citrus by Vilhelm Parfumerie captures the sharpness and overstimulated city-night haze of the album. It’s clean and dangerous, citrus-forward but not exactly fresh. Notes include cardamom, Calabrian bergamot, mate leaves, violet, birch, patchouli, and vetiver. The opening is bright and crisp, but the drydown leans dark—vetiver and birch pulling it inward. It smells like the moment the night turns reflective, when the high fades and you’re left with your own thoughts. Bold projection with a wear time of about six to seven hours. Perfect for mystery.
For the affordable pick, The Observer by Treading Water Perfume leans moodier. It’s the part of the evening no one talks about, and probably the part you’re not supposed to walk into alone. Notes of violet, incense, black pepper, vanilla, oakmoss, and sandalwood make it complex and shadowy. The violet is earthy, not sweet, and the black pepper hits sharp. It’s a scent that clings to your clothes the next morning—smoky, strange, and unexpectedly tender. Projection is strong, wear time solid, and best worn a few times before deciding if it’s really yours. A scent for feeling too much and saying nothing.
Intimacy (2008)
The romantic comedown. The snap back to reality. The processing of heartbreak—whether you’re ready or not—is what Intimacy captures. All the sadness, anger, confusion, fear, isolation, and pain mashed into one chaotic whole. The album jumps between glitchy dance tracks and moments that almost verge on industrial noise. It’s jagged, emotional, and unstable in the best way. I’ve always thought Intimacy was undervalued—maybe just too early for its time. It explores this idea of distant intimacy, the kind of connection that feels romantic, maybe even obsessive, but still cold and unreachable. Like you’re tethered to someone emotionally but still can’t access them. It reminds me of The Gossip’s “Love Long Distance”—that ache of being close and far at the same time, with no clear explanation why. It’s the sound of a particularly brutal breakup, and trust me, I would know, as someone who’s had her share of messy lesbian breakups. There are moments with haunting choral vocals, moments for dancing, and moments that just make you want to scream. Sonically, it’s a constant push and pull—sharp and punchy, then soft and melodic. Always moving between lull and punch.
For Intimacy, I’ve paired two fragrances that sit in that same in-between space: Coeur Noir by Heretic Parfum as the luxe pick, and Wisteria Blue Eau de Parfum by Nest Fragrances as the affordable one.
Coeur Noir is melodic, intense, and often misunderstood—just like the album itself. It smells like the slow collapse of a relationship, a love that rots quietly under the surface until the distance becomes impossible to ignore. Notes include rosewood, labdanum, and Madagascar vanilla. The opening is sweet, then turns tart and almost sour, but not in a cloying way. More like something ripe that’s just beginning to ferment. It’s the kind of scent that sticks to skin like an unresolved feeling. It lingers. It changes. And it never really lets go.
Wisteria Blue isn’t quite a bluebell, but it’s close enough to bring to life the lyric in “Signs” about bluebells in late December. With notes of wisteria, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, and crisp water, it captures the softer grief on the album—the parts where memory shows up unexpectedly in the scent of a flower or a flash of color. “Signs” has helped me process the loss of a close friend, and this fragrance holds the same emotional energy. It’s delicate but deeply emotional, a scent that lives in quiet moments, in absence and remembrance.
Four (2013)
I like tension, don’t you? Tension makes good art. Four is tension: heavy, loud, snarly. It’s less produced, less electronic, more glaring rock. It sounds like friction, like a band tearing through its own history just to see what’s left. And while a lot of people, especially critics, were pretty braindead about it—always chasing a cleaner redux of their debut—this album isn’t interested in nostalgia. It’s angry and unpredictable, but also full of weird beauty. “Coliseum” opens with a twangy, almost country feel before collapsing into metal riffs, and then there’s “V.A.L.I.S.,” which is practically bouncy, almost dance pop. It makes you want to jump, even while your stomach drops. Four gives you every range of emotion: rage, confusion, tenderness, clarity. It’s genre-play with bruises. A breakup album, a rage album, a don’t-touch-me-but-also-hold-me album. It’s conflict. It’s tension. And that’s what makes it work.
There are so many directions you could go with a scent pairing for Four. Wear something a little confrontational—something for the critics. For the luxe pick, I recommend Notorious Oud by D.S. & Durga. For something more affordable, Tokyo by Gallivant brings a similarly intense vibe but with a crisp, modern edge.
Notorious Oud is not for the fragrance shy. Oud itself tends to elicit strong opinions—it’s deeply intimate, slightly aggressive, and full of contradiction. This one opens with notes of saffron, camphor, and white galbanum, then settles into Indonesian oud, Bulgarian rose, and lavender absolute. The base of civet, cetalox, and papyrus gives it heat and just a touch of something animalic—but not in a pissy way. It’s spicy, smoky, a little hypnotic. What makes it compelling is the way the rose cuts through everything else. It’s abrasive but endearing, messy but romantic. It wears beautifully in a Brooklyn dive bar, or anywhere you want to feel loud and hard to ignore.
Tokyo by Gallivant is hypnotic in a different way. It smells like hinoki wood on fire—something spiritual, something electric. Notes of yuzu, cardamom, incense, sandalwood, and vetiver create something that starts crisp and fresh but quickly turns smoldering. It dries down into a grounding, slightly bitter woodiness that hums on the skin. The yuzu gives it a snap, the incense keeps it weird, and by the one-hour mark you smell like you’ve survived something. It has a wear time of around four to five hours with solid projection. It kicks you a bit—in a good way.
Hymns (2016)
Hymns is perhaps Bloc Party’s most controversial album—it’s a real departure. Minimal, ambient, almost weightless in places. I definitely catch trip-hop influences throughout, mixed with gospel and soul in ways that feel unexpected but intentional. It’s music for reflection, especially on tracks like “So Real,” one of the strongest on an often misunderstood record. Listening to this album feels like a hot summer day in a park, alone, zoned out, deep in your own head. I think the themes around religion are genuinely worthwhile, not in a preachy way but as an attempt to better understand the divine. There’s a searching quality here, a quiet curiosity about virtue, faith, desire, what we believe in, and why. It asks, without ever fully answering: What is the truth?
Prepare to fall on your sword with these fragrance pairings—falling, like the album, in search of truth. For a luxe option, I recommend Indigo Smoke by Arquiste. For something more grounded and perfect for religious trauma processing, my affordable pick is Néroli Botanica by Essential Parfums.
Indigo Smoke feels ancient. There’s a wandering energy to it, something meditative and distant. Notes include bergamot, orange, vetiver, apricot, cassia, carrot seed, gaiac wood, vanilla, maté, cedar leaf, pine tar, and incense. It wears like a softly burning incense stick—sweet and smoky, grounded by gaiac wood, with occasional flashes of tea and tar. Wear time is about four hours, fading into a close skin scent after the first hour. It’s warm, intimate, and reflective—perfect for reckoning with whatever god or ghost you’re avoiding.
Néroli Botanica by Essential Parfums does a startling job of bottling holy water. It’s clean and white-floral, sharp and nearly punishing—but also healing. Neroli, orange blossom, and herbal greens come together to create something that smells like a sanctuary and a sting all at once. It wears surprisingly well, with a six-hour projection that’s steady but not overwhelming. There’s something almost sterile about it at first, but it softens with wear—like faith stripped of its rituals. A scent for when you need something to cleanse you, not coddle you.
Alpha Games (2022)
Alpha Games has some of the best drumming I’ve heard on a rock or indie album in recent years. It’s a controlled burn—precise, rhythmic, and relentless. The rest of the album holds up too. Some fans and critics saw it as a return to the band’s roots, and I can see that, but what stands out to me is its rhythm and theatricality. There’s something campy here in the best way, like moments that could easily be narrating your life if you were the kind of person who walks through chaos with eyeliner smudged and shoulders squared. Things get particularly interesting with “Sex Magik,” a track that leans ritualistic and witchy, pulsing with chant-like energy and a sense of erotic power. The whole album plays with ego—the kind we project, the kind we perform, the kind that fights us and sometimes carries us. It explores how ego can regress us or empower us, how identity can be armor or drag.
For an album like Alpha Games, a scent with a sense of satire and self-awareness is needed. Something confident, performative, and layered. For the luxe pick, I recommend Ummagumma by FZOTIC. For a more grounded counterpart that aligns beautifully with the sensual ritual of “Sex Magik,” I suggest Desert Man by L’Aromatica.
Ummagumma is dark and sweet, but never cloying. The chocolate note is noticeable, but it’s elevated—cut through with saffron, carnation, tobacco, leather, labdanum, and sandalwood. There’s frankincense and cedar to ground it, and tonka bean and vanilla to round it out. It’s decadent, a little strange, and deeply skin-forward. This isn’t a scent that screams. It hums. It wears close, almost intimate. A scent of craving ego—flamboyant and indulgent but subtle in projection. You smell like power, but you keep it close.
Desert Man by L’Aromatica is quieter but no less charged. With notes of sun-bleached woods, sagebrush, white musk (vegan), myrrh, and sweetgrass, it smells like personal ceremony. The Myrrh is a nice but unexpected touch. Nonetheless, it’s needed. It’s green, musky, slightly smoky—ritualistic, healing, and grounding. It evokes space, breath, and embodied movement. It’s the softer shadow of Alpha Games—less ego, more essence.
Bloc Party has always soundtracked transformation for me, and probably for a lot of us. These scent pairings are just one way to trace that evolution, to hold the feelings a little closer. Whether you're dancing, spiraling, healing, or raging, there's a fragrance and a Bloc Party song for that.
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