Bastille - Bad Blood


Everything about Bastille should read as irritating: the use of the triangle in their band logo, the use of their music in the ads we skip before YouTube videos, frontman Dan Smith's hair. They've even got that token new-cool-thing about them that the UK gets behind in their droves to give a debut #1 (see: Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande). Let's not even touch naming yourself after the pinnacle of the French Revolution on the whim of sharing a birthday with it.


Wisely starting on their strongest merit - the single 'Pompeii' - they immediately unleash about three simultaneous hooks. The most obvious is their chanted vocal refrain, a sort of Lion King homage that, if anything, sticks in the head. Lyrically, the song suffers a lot from cliches ("the walls kept tumbling down/ grey clouds roll over the hills") and a touch of megalomania (comparing a romantic turmoil with the explosion of Vesuvius? See the music video for more ridiculousness). Smith's vocals turn to more schmaltzy nonsense in 'Things We Lost in the Fire', a kind of effortless rehash of Pompeii with repetitive lyrics and zero resonance. The album's title track is inclined a little more to the electronic side of things but again cops out with some "oh-oh-oh" vocal refrains as the sole attempt at a pop hook. "I hear you calling in the dead of night" he huskily moans on 'Overjoyed', a title that doesn't quite live up to its billing.

"All that's left behind is a shadow on my mind" is cried with some vague attempt at depth on 'These Streets', before one of the catchier tracks - the wobbly-vocals of 'Weight of Living' - takes hold. Sadly, if you are a FIFA 13 player, the song's already been drilled to death in the parts of your subconscious you block out whilst trying to manage wage budgets. Unfortunate. They revert then to the "I've looked at a Wikipedia page of something interesting and slapped some thoroughly unrelatable modern angst on it" shtick on 'Icarus', a track that drowns in its own monotony. They do manage some earnest tenderness though and Smith's vocals are occasionally sweet: on 'Oblivion' his whispers and falsettos are inoffensively lovely. Aforementioned YouTube botherer 'Flaws' boasts the album's most interesting musical composition, and - this may be a personal thing - rather billed the rest of the album as the Mumford & Sons of electropop for me (when M&S were good, that is).

The album does bow out with some of the strongest tracks on display: 'Daniel in the Den' has a rather unsubtle stab at a former lover's betrayal ("and felled in the night by the ones you think you love/ they will come for you") over a pretty, drawn back instrumental. Newest single 'Laura Palmer' is one of the most bombastic, and at least tugs at the heartstrings through commanding musical presence. They end, though, with 'Get Home', which resurrects some of the melodies from 'Pompeii' under the album's most nonsensical and tedious lyrics. "There's a light in the bedroom, but it's dark/ Scattered around on the floor are my thoughts". Seriously?



They're not a terrible band, Bastille. They're just the type of band that make you question whether keeping up with new music is a venture you want to continue. They also have the tragic side effect of belittling a range of mythology and historical events, so... big thumbs down here.

Rating: 4.5/10
Highlights: Flaws; Pompeii; Oblivion; Laura Palmer; Daniel in the Den
Avoid: Icarus; These Streets; Overjoyed; Things We Lost in the Fire

Artwork Watch: silly person that is a road you aren't a car
For fans of:  Mumford & Sons; fan-made YouTube videos of Doctor Who romances; being force fed new 'alternative' music by BBC Radio 1
Up next: Kate Nash   

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