The follow up from an international, multi-platinum debut record is certainly no easy task, but Bastille are back with their latest release ‘Wild World’.
The four British lads: Dan Smith, Kyle Simmons, Will Farquarson and Chris Wood, set high expectations after their 2013 album, ‘Bad Blood’, took over radio stations and topped charts worldwide with massive singles ‘Pompeii’, ‘Flaws’ and ‘Of The Night’. This month they’ve returned with a 14-track record, giving us a whole, new side to the electronic pop tracks they’ve become famous for.
“We don’t really give a f@ck about genre.”
The album was written during the years of touring ‘Bad Blood’. “I write all the time and I sing ideas,” frontman Dan Smith says. “They pop into my head and I try to sing them into my phone without looking completely crazy.
“For us, some of the songs came in batches, some of them came really, really quickly and others we worked on over the course of a year or so. I guess there was this idea that it was going to be quite an odd… slightly disorientating mixtape.”
And he’s not wrong. ‘Wild World’ sees the four-piece sailing into some very different territory. The album still showcases their signature, electropop sound, but they certainly weren’t keen to make a ‘Bad Blood’ sequel. “This time around we wanted to be more obvious with our influences and a bit bolder with them… There’s this song called ‘Four Walls’, which I think comes from a lot of Frank Ocean and James Blake, and then there’s other stuff that’s almost like Jack White [of The White Stripes], with guitar riffs.
“There’s a song called 'Two Evils' that we were thinking a lot about it being a Tarantino kind of soundtrack and 'Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)’ by Sinatra, and anything and everything in between. It’s that tireless desire to scratch every itch and it’s hard to pin down. We weren’t looking to do one particular thing with this record. We don’t really give a fuck about genre.”
The band has been releasing teasers about the new album for a couple of months, with the release of lead single ‘Good Grief’ as well as ‘Fake It’, a song that Dan says they released to show another side to the album. “I don’t think there really is a typical Bastille song but, I think 'Good Grief' is the closest to that there could be. It’s this quite odd, upbeat-sounding song, but the lyrics are very far from that.
“We always like to play with that contrast and tension, and how music can make you feel really happy and really sad at the same time. It’s the opening track on the album, it has this quote from 'Weird Science' [a 1985 sci-fi comedy] that’s kind of a nod to our foundation and how long it’s been since we last released an album. So, it felt like a good stepping off point in that it feels like a Bastille tune but it’s a step on [from that].”
‘Wild World’ is available now.
