Album Review: Bastille – &

British band Bastille, formed in 2010 and fronted by lead vocalist Dan Smith, are well known and adored.  Their alt rock/synth-pop/indie blend creates atmospheric, anthem-like tracks (such as Pompeii) with catchy hooks and introspective lyrics abound. Often exploring themes of love, loss, and existential pondering, the band have returned with their fifth studio album & (released through Best Laid Plans Records) – a unique, four-part project featuring interconnected songs that explore various historical, mythological, and personal narratives.  Let’s see what the first part of this musical take on an archaeological dig reveals.

Starting with the aptly names Intros & Narrators, Bastille begin proceedings with a track which is folky in nature, this track is minimalist and simple in its composition and lyrics, and flows into a stylistically similar Eve & Paradise Lost (covering love and temptation in the biblical garden of Eden), and this style of predominantly acoustic guitar weaves through to Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky (reimagining poet Emily Dickinson’s reclusive life as an elevated mental sanctuary where her thoughts could soar).  The folk turns towards alt rock in Blue Sky & The Painter (a track using Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s struggles as a metaphor for light emerging through despair), while Leonard & Marianne is very much a ballad, using Leonard Cohen’s bond to his muse as inspiration.  The weaving of the tracks to persons of historic significance continue through to the synth-poppy Marie & Polonium (Marie Curie) and a return to folky vibe of the first two tracks in Red Wine & Wilde (Oscar Wilde)… and this motif continues with a song about the myth of Narcissus in Seasons & Narcissus (Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection – where do you think the term ‘narcissist’ came from?)

Moving away from specific peoples (both real and myth), Drawbridge & The Baroness is a indie-pop  track which picks up over the course of the track, drawing on love and vulnerability … the drawbridge being an obvious metaphor for emotional barriers, and whilst the instrumentation in The Soprano & Midnight Wonderings is totally different – Abimbola Amaoko-Gyampah provides the vocals in this more grown up indie track – the lyrics continue along the path of not referring to specific peoples or events.  This welcome break ends abruptly with the up tempo indie track Essie & Paul (a song inspired by American civil rights activists Essie and Paul Robeson), which has great use of strings in a Beatles Elanor Rigby style, and weaves through the folk-pop Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze (inspired by the life of opera singer Julie d’Aubigny – with some verses in French later on), the slow beat indie track Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her (covering topics of societal struggles of and feminist tropes around the 18^th Century female pirate), and finishing up with Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024 – my favourite track on the album – a poignant thoughtful track, intertwining personal experiences with a poem written by Dan Smith’s farther during travels to California in the 1970’s.

& is not for me.  Let’s get that out the way.  It’s a well thought out album, well-constructed, great production, well executed… but it doesn’t stand out to me.  I did love the assembly of each track and the lyrics have clearly got some thought behind it, but there are so many tracks that are inspired by understated people in history and mythology, that none of them are particularly special because it feels like that’s how it is on every track.  & continues the conceptual creativity of Bastille’s previous work, but there is too much of a new focus on storytelling and the album ends up feeling like a collection of musical character studies, which is not what I’m looking for from a Bastille album.

Graeme R