The first thing I noticed, listening to the new Bastille, is that there isn’t a song as bad as “Pompeii”, one of the most annoying pop songs of the last decade. And, as an aside, Dan Smith doesn’t sound as annoying as he did either (“iff you cloose yore oyes”). He is still a singular talent, unique in delivery and cadence. Just not annoying as all hell.
Give Me The Future is the groups fourth album, continuing their upward trajectory – this is the best I’ve heard them, a sentiment shared by most critics. Obviously I’m not super into pop music, but this is pretty good. It hits a bunch of different notes – rock, pop, electronic – mixing and matching to great effect, layering synths providing a cacophony on which to drop the vocal.
I also like that Smith seems to have some things to say here. ‘Feels like we danced into a nightmare,’ he sings in mid-album highlight “Back To The Future”. ‘We’re living 1984 / If doublethink’s no longer fiction / We’ll dream of Huxley’s island shores’. Smith appears to be thinking about the nature of information in a post-truth world.
This is a pretty good album – not too long, full of decent tracks (my favourite might be late album track “Stay Awake?”), and its one I could imagine revisiting.
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CLTM (Chris Listens To Music) is my attempt to listen to a new album every day; you can follow my efforts on Instagram here (and send recommendations), and if you like what I’m doing, support my efforts by shouting me a cuppa at Buy Me A Coffee.