Bastille’s new album restores faith in good music

Photo from Bastille’s official website, used with permission under fair use.

Finding new artists that the radio hasn’t exploited is relatively hard these days, so discovering a new band that has both great vocals and amazing lyrics is a pretty big deal.

Listening to Pandora is how I usually find new music, and when Bastille’s song “Pompeii” came on my Mumford and Sons radio, I was immediately hooked. I began the hours of researching who exactly Bastille were, and soon fell in love with their album “Bad Blood.”

“Bad Blood” was released in the UK on March 4, 2013, and later was released in the U.S. on Sept. 3, 2013. The Deluxe version of “Bad Blood” treats listeners with three bonus tracks, giving the album a total of 15 songs. With allusions to Greek mythology and the Bible, Bastille gives a new meaning to “thinking about the universe.”

Bastille are a band from London, England. Not only are they incredibly talented, Bastille also let some of their British accents shine through in the vocals of their songs.

The band features lead singer Dan Smith, Chris Wood, Will Farquarson and Kyle Simmons. The name of the band came from Bastille Day, which is a French holiday.

Bastille’s unique sound can be best described as “apocalyptic indie pop.”

With track names that are reminiscent of destruction, like “Pompeii,” “Things We Lost In the Fire,” and “Icarus,” Bastille’s debut album is a welcome break from artists who only know how to sing a string of profanities.

The track “Bad Blood,” which shares its name with the album itself, is the sort of song you’d want to listen to when walking past someone you used to share a history with. The song’s meaning is, of course, only limited to what each listener thinks of it, but the general meaning, of letting go of painful memories, is unique and different from what most singers occupy themselves with.

“Overjoyed,” Oblivion,” and “Get Home,” are the album’s slower songs, so if you’re more of a fan of faster paced songs, you might not enjoy these tracks as much, but that’s not to say you should completely disregard them without hesitation.

“Weight of Living, PT. II” is a song about being unsure of what the future holds. It’s the sort of song that slaps you in the face with thought-provoking lyrics like, “Every day that passes, faster than the last did/ And you’ll be old soon, you’ll be old/ Do you like the person you’ve become?” Despite these hard-to-answer questions this song poses, the beat is uplifting, not drenched in sadness, like you might expect, if you only saw the title of the song.

“Flaws” paints the picture of two people with their different flaws, one who doesn’t deny them, and one who tries to hide them. The piano work in this song melts with the vocals flawlessly, and it’s somehow even better sung acapella with a piano.

“Laura Palmer” is a song that starts off with a slower beat that explodes into a more upbeat tune. It’s the sort of beat that makes me want to look dramatically out my car window and pretend I’m in some sort of thriller.

Don’t let the name of “The Silence” fool you into thinking it’s going to be a slow song. The opposite couldn’t be more true. “The Silence” explores the idea that some people keep thoughts in their head that others want to hear. In essence, sharing “a piece of your history that you’re proud to call your own” is what “The Silence” is about: sharing thoughts that would previously go unsaid.

“Weight of Living, PT. I” fits perfectly if you listen to it right after “Weight of Living, PT. II.” It’s a sort of reverse-order duo of songs that contain the same question of, “Can you stand the person you’ve become?”

The last song on the Deluxe version of “Bad Blood” is “Laughter Lines,” which is actually quite fitting as the last song. Smith sings about growing old with someone and sharing stories, and how he’ll “see you in the future, when we’re older.”

If you’re into bands like Mumford and Sons, Two Door Cinema Club, or any other indie/alternative pop, then why not go ahead and buy yourself a copy of “Bad Blood”? The $7.98 you spend on “Bad Blood” won’t be a mistake.

 

by HARMONY REILLY