Bastille – Doom Days

In a recent interview with NME, Bastille’s charming and often astute frontman Dan Smith said that amid a world of political chaos, Doom Days would serve as a reminder to "live your life and try and be happy." Smith, with Bastille as his mouthpiece, has often encouraged an active and conscious approach towards society’s big issues, but on their third effort, the four-piece change the pace. Instead, Bastille embrace an outlook of positivity, turning a brief blind eye, and momentarily dancing gleefully on a wasteland.

The ‘doomed’ aspect Doom Days is largely ignored, with Quarter Past Midnight, Bad Decisions and The Waves setting precedent for the rest of the record with odes to nights out, good times and forgetting the realities of the 'darkened days'. It’s not until Divide that we remember the world outside, as Smith groans 'Why would we divide when we could come together?'. On Million Pieces, a song that literally talks about ignoring bad news on a night out, 'the echoes of bad news ring loud / No sound can ever drown them out'.

While the interjection of these songs provide sobering reminders of what lies beyond the pleasantries, the party continues over the course of the record's 11 tracks, and an air of euphoria is present throughout. Quarter Past Midnight, Nocturnal Creatures and Joy combine big singalong choruses with positive energy and a feeling that everything will be alright. In typical Bastille fashion, the synths are glossy, the beats are bouncy, gang vocal harmonies appear in abundance, and their general inventiveness within the electro-pop artform is explored effectively once more.

While it’s hard to realistically support such an ignorant approach to life as 'drink, fuck, dance right through disaster', what Bastille show on Doom Days is we should all enjoy life before the doom worsens.

Listen to: Quarter Past Midnight, Million Pieces, Joy