Bastille Releases ‘Give Me The Future’.
Written by: Marco Belotti
When I first saw a link for the new album from Bastille in my emails, I was thrilled to listen and discover what Bastille has done this time.
I’m a big Bastille fan since All This Bad Blood and I was sure that this new album would have been incredible.
Here’s the tracklist:
Distorted Light Beam
Thelma + Louise
No Bad Days
Brave New World (Interlude)
Back To The Future
Plug In…
Promises (by Riz Ahmed)
Shut Off The Lights
Stay Awake
Give Me The Future
Club 57
Total Dissociation (Interlude)
Future Holds
It’s really amazing. And not just because I’m a big fan of the band but because it’s a good album, and really well structured. Starting from the first song “Distorted Light Beam”, a single that was released in 2021. I always love when in a song the synth part is blended perfectly with the strings part and in this song everything is done perfectly, particularly in the last chorus (I loved the Daft Punk style outro).
The second song of the album is “Thelma + Louise” (this song previously released as a single as well). A really good song with a deep bass that lead the mood to the third song “No Bad Days” (another single released before), a song about an hospital bed in Australia, really devastating but at the same time hopeful. After the “Brave New World Interlude” it’s time for “Back To The Future”, a nice filler song that anticipates “Plug In”, my favourite song from this album. The flow of the first verse leads the listener to a voice-based chorus that’s simply amazing. But also this time is the way that the band mixes strings with synths that gives to the song a “epic/synth/magic” aura. Goooooood job guys, really a good song!
After the short monologue “Promises” by the British actor Riz Ahmed , (nope, I don’t want to tell you what the monologue is about, go to listen on you Spotify or Apple Music or whatever, pretty sure you’ll love it!) it’s time for the eighth song of the album "Shut off the Lights", the last single released as the album’s anticipation built up. A catchy song (I love the saxophone in this one) that gives me the idea of a night in late 70’s on the dancefloor. But no time for dancing, there’s the ninth song coming up. “Stay Awake” is a song that starts with Dan’s voice “Ovoxed” (Hey, Bastille, if you are reading this, I know you guys used Ovox, I’m using it too, one of the best plug-ins ever!), and goes on with a pretty good rhythm with lots of influences from Daft Punk.
And now here it comes! “Give Me The Future” the focus track of the album, a song with influences from Phil Collins and The Police, the mix of this one is something staggering, nice job Mr. Studio Mixer!
The eleventh track of the album is “Club 57” the strongest song of the album in my opinion.
After that, it’s “Total Dissociation (Interlude)”, and the last track of the album, “ Future Holds”. Great job with voices’ mixing and processing in this song too, the basses are immersive and deep and the synths are whispering and floating like clouds, in the chorus the “gospel style” voices are something amazing and the outro should be in a masterclass regarding how to finish an album.
And this time too, one of my favourite bands made my favourite album of 2022.
Come to Italy, please.