Bastille to defeat the big bosses of nowadays’ reality with new escapist album ‘Give Me The Future’

Nearly ten years have gone by since Bastille’s debut studio album ‘Bad Blood’ was released, and now Woody, Kyle, Will, and Dan will take us to Future Inc.’s inner universe along with Charlie Barnes and BIM as special guests. 

Preceded by the singles ‘Distorted Light Beam’, ‘Give Me The Future’, ‘Thelma + Louise’, and ‘Shut Off the Lights’, Bastille’s fourth album was created during numerous lockdowns with the help of Ryan Tedder as “a great extra ear”, Dan told USA Today. The band has always been driven by the bittersweet taste of science-fiction films and TV series, as well as dystopic novels. For example, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Matrix by the Wachowskis, Netflix serial Black Mirror, Twin Peaks by Mark Frost, and David Lynch.

Within this album, Bastille explored the spectrum of human imagination and emotions projecting them in the revolutionary collective dreaming technologies of Future Inc. (one of the many ‘Give Me The Future’ engaging side projects). The record contains ten tracks alternated by two instrumental yet synthesized interludes, and Riz Ahmed’s poem, ‘Promises.’ Well known for his protagonist role in Sound of Metal, the actor and rapper snaps for a moment the optimistic tone of the album by bringing back the rawness of reality from which ‘Give Me The Future’ is trying to escape.

Indeed, the concept behind the album sounds like a mass self-analysis on vivid social and individual contradictions, and the attempt to take modern life as it comes. That is what the funky and dry beats of ‘Back To The Future’ and ‘Shut Off the Lights’ stand for. Frontman Dan Smith translated this mood into music creating a retro yet futuristic theme and refreshing the old great sounds from Prince, Talking Heads, Daft Punk, and many more.

In the middle of the album, ‘Plug In…’ opens the doors to the inner universe and stretches the denial about reality’s struggles into hope for endless possibilities. This is expressed through a swell of upbeat violins. Although Bastille’s new album ‘Give Me The Future’ vivifies the big bad bosses of nowadays reality like isolation, screen addiction, boredom, social injustice, bills, fear of failure, and the same ol’ wrong decisions made by politicians as well as people. It even utters that the Super Mario Bros need a break from this upside-down world we’re living in.

‘Future Holds’ and ‘Give Me The Future’ wrap up the record in optimistic scenarios about how the future might turn out by having someone to rely on and share the small happy moments with, or finding relief in a hot cup of tea in a warm and sunny day far from obligations and anxieties. The choirs in ‘Future Holds’ and the ascending rhythms in ‘Give Me The Future’ celebrate the energy and beauty of human connections run counter to cold technologies. 

Switch off the screen, plug your headphones into ‘Give Me The Future’, and hopefully find escape with “Just a little bit of tenderness.”

 

Martina Bovetta 

@lulinabulina

Image: Bastille ‘Give Me The Future’ Official Album Cover