Bastille’s “Wild World” is Versatile and Impressive

Renowned British pop band Bastille released their second studio album, Wild World, on Sept. 9, 2016. The band, led by singer-songwriter Dan Smith, is known for its danceable pop songs with interesting stories and lyrics. Their first hit in the U.S was “Pompeii” in 2013, after which they released their first studio album “Bad Blood.” Other singles from this album include “Bad Blood”, “Flaws”, and “Things We Lost In The Fire.” It debuted at number one on the UK albums chart and was nominated for British Album of the Year at the 2014 BRIT Awards.

In an interview with Jack Shepherd of independent.co.uk, Smith and guitarist Will Farquarson discuss the progression of the band’s sound and how Wild World differs from their previous album and mixtapes: “We harkened back to our first two mixtapes from before the album where we took a lot from film soundtracks and film quotes, as well as covers of songs, to make these two things of continuous music, at the time inspired by Frank Ocean and The Weekend who were just putting music out for free,” says Smith. “Then we made our record which was more, first album, straight down the line, 12 separate songs. Since then, we’ve done another mix tape [”VS.”] and we wanted to nod quite heavily towards that. The new album flows like a mixtape and has different quotes from films and documentaries and jumps around in styles a lot. There’s some more hip-hop production style stuff and Will did a lot more.”

Wild World features nineteen new songs including the first single “Good Grief”, which was released several weeks before the release of the full album and created a lot of anticipation among fans. About “Good Grief” Smith says, “Our songwriting, my vocal, make it what it is, they make it a Bastille album. Good Grief” is probably one of the least surprising tracks on the album.” in an interview with NME, Smith talks about his inspiration for writing this song, stating, “I wanted to write about how bizarre grief and loss are, either literally because someone has died, or the loss of a relationship or a friendship.” The rest of the tracks for the album were reportedly announced one-by-one on the band’s Snapchat story.

Other standout tracks from the album are “Warmth”, “The Anchor”, and “Send Them Off!” which all will likely do very well in the coming year owing to their prominent catchy pop beats and interesting use of instrumentation and lyrics.

Coming off of the success of “Bad Blood”, Bastille finds a perfect landing pad to display Wild World. If anyone counted Bastille as an American one-hit-wonder after “Pompeii”, one listen through Wild World will quickly change their minds. The album as a whole gives mature, introspective, and fun vibes and can easily find a home anywhere from playing during a walk between classes or as the playlist for a party.