Final Rating: 8/10
If this was a dramatic rom com moment I would be screaming “It’s been three years!” into the face of my love interest as the rain pours down around us as I stand in front of my mansion. But unfortunately it’s not and this is real life and instead I’m screaming “It’s been three years!” at a band’s twitter page as I lay in my bed eating popcorn and watching reruns of Criminal Minds. Now I know I’ve been quite vague here and you have some questions like: What band? Why are you yelling? Do you need psychiatric help? Well my answers can be summed up quite simply actually. The band is Bastille, I’m yelling because their second album Wild World is finally out after three long agonizing years of waiting, and quite possibly yes.
It’s about damn time that Bastille comes back with new music because honestly one can only listen to flaws about a thousands times before they start to get sick of it, okay maybe two thousand but that’s it! Really it’s the moment that anyone who has the slightest interest in indie music has been waiting for. Now I guess I’m making it sound like this album is a really big deal and well that’s because it is. Their debut album Bad Blood took the world by storm and topped charts all over the globe. Also you can’t forget to mention that it carried Bastille around the world on several tours that consisted of some pretty massive shows, including one at the Air Canada Center. The success that they reached with their debut album is rare in the world of music where people’s attention spans are quick and fleeting. That’s a lot to live up to and a lot of pressure to put on a sophmore album; maybe that’s why it took three years to release? Yet despite it all Wild World is here and we are not disappointed in the slightest, infact we are utterly blown away.
The album has everything that there is to love about Bastille; Dan Smith’s throaty vocals and honest songwriting, a perfect touch of pop without being too pop, and of course who can forget about the harmonizing vocals. Wild World keeps a little bit of everything that makes Bastille who they are without sounding like a repeat of their debut album. Wild World is darker than their previous release riddled with lyrics about heartbreak, loss, and even fear about the wild world we live in. The entire album is layered with political undertones from the lyrics to the spoken messages on the tracks.This album takes the listener further into the understanding of human connection on a global scale; provoking thoughts and feelings along the way. Yet Bastille manages to keep the music sounding light and refreshing underneath the heavy messages that the songs deliver.
The record also seems to have a more unified theme than their previous release. While it does paint a fuller picture for the album as whole it also makes it harder for certain songs to stand out alone. There is a delicate line that one walks when they chose to tell a story within an album. You need to make the songs carry a similar theme without making them all sound too much like one another. The listener can easily fall into the trap of seeing the album as a sort of puzzle; where they rush to see the complete image and fail to observe the individual pieces. On the first few listens of Wild World the songs sort of seem to mesh into one, like a completed puzzle. But of course what is a puzzle if it is missing even a single piece? Bastille manages to find the perfect balance between creating a story within the album but also making each song its own entity.
Wild World is a breath of fresh air in a world littered with over synthesized, overplayed, and overrated music. It has to offer everything that there is to love about indie and pop on both ends of the spectrum. It lays way to the deeper questions that listeners crave with indie but also the upbeat feel that drives the listeners towards pop. The record is everything that you could hope for in with a sophomore album. It shows the obvious progression of Bastille as a band but still stays true to their root; reminding us all why we are so captivated by them in the first place. While Bad Blood may have made Bastille one of the front runners in indie music, Wild World might just win them first place.
