Ah, the sweet smell of nostalgia for 2004.

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[5.44]

Iain Mew: The band are back on great form, riffs and beats skittering back and forth unpredictably. The problem is that Kele’s barely there and adds little in comparison to obvious predecessors like “Helicopter”. The best moment is when they swap roles and the guitars turn to honey as he exclaims “You done lost your mind!” but it’s gone quickly. I have no idea what the Daft Punk impression bit is about, either. I guess after Muse and Blur it would be too much to hope for every successful British guitar band making a comeback this summer to do so with their best song in ages.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I like the woo-oo sounds, and the general narrative isn’t horrible, and some of the electronic soundscapes distract interestingly from the vocals, and it’s better then most of this genre, if a little unhinged. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: This once good minor band have spent the last few years affirming the “minor” part of their CV, so the palpable enthusiasm here is a relief. The bass line and stutter riff tangle like vines around Kele’s throat — a mixed blessing. All he’s got to offer though is the glee with which he sings “You done lost your mind.” Since it’s his job to frame these musical ideas, take that lyric as a warning.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Not a Syd Barrett cover? (Theatrical sigh.) Fine, lets — oh, there’s that post-punk yowl. Or is it Damon Albarn, Jr.? Maybe if he’d sing into the microphone I’d be able to tell what he sounded like. Kids these days. Get off my lawn.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Bloc Party are back from a three-year hiatus with…a single sounding like a Silent Alarm B-side.  After 2008’s Intimacy though, that’s not such a bad thing for this group.  The actual sound of “Octopus” is pretty typical Bloc Party, precision-obsessed guitar playing that continually teases chaos without ever dissolving (the closest they come here is a guitar solo).  The real triumph of “Octopus” is lead singer Kele Okereke’s decision to not stand out, letting his vocals blend in with the guitars.   
[6]

Jer Fairall: Better than most of their later work mostly in the sense that treading water is preferable to drowning, in “Octopus” the band nevertheless sees the path back to the initial triumph of Silent Alarm (beyond the amiable Brit/dance-pop of A Weekend In The City, beyond whatever the fuck Intimacy was supposed to be) through the gnarled perversity of mid-period Blur, but still a long ways from that mix of anxiety and exuberance of their debut (not to mention their still-best moment, the ferocious early single “The Answer”). There’s a nice tension between the swagger of the vocal and the stutter of the music, but when the chorus pays off with nothing more than some “ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh”s, it leaves the whole thing undercooked. At least they’re using guitars again, I guess.  
[5]

Brad Shoup: Riffs and reflexes, waving elements on as lazily as a waterpark lifeguard on a Tuesday. I was kinda hoping Mary Anna said it’s an own goal.
[6]

Will Adams: Kele, filtered through a guitar amp, has some cool tricks up his sleeve – his slurring of “in my hoooooood” – but the rubber band guitar riff that keeps buzzing in my left ear falls to the wrong side of the fine line between irritating and invigorating. Extra point docked for yawning into my ear in the first five seconds.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: Easy money says I’m the only one here who adored not only Silent Alarm, but also A Weekend in the City, which wasn’t perfect but had a lot of things to say (mostly well, sometimes hamfistedly, sometimes better on the often-superior b-sides) to my state of mind when it came out. Easier money says I’m the only one who genuinely loved more than one track off Intimacy, which was a jumble of interesting failures and a few stunning successes, notably ‘Signs‘, which numbers among Kele & Co.’s best ballads. All of which is to say, ‘Octopus’ gets a [6] not because it’s a less-than-competent Silent Alarm album track but because I’m disappointed that Bloc Party have returned to safe territory when it looked like they were venturing forth into the great unknown and stumbling on something really brilliant.
[6]