Bastille formed a mere three years ago in 2010 and have been climbing the music ladder swiftly since then, which is why it is of no surprise that they are this weeks free download on iTunes.
Bastille is actually a band, although they did start out as just singer Dan Smith in South London. They are named Bastille after Bastille Day which is Dan’s birthday. Now signed to a major label the guys did well in 2012, following their festival performances at Glastonbury, Isle of Wight and Blissfields (they’re headlining this one in 2013) in 2011, they performed at Reading and Leeds and the iTunes festival in 2012. We were lucky enough to be at the iTunes night, with Bastille supporting Emeli Sandé before embarking on their own headline tour in October of 2012.
Now tipped to make it big in 2013 and having just supported Two Door Cinema Club on tour, we meet Bastille again with their iTunes single of the week ‘Laughter Lines’.
Bastille present us with an electro, symphony based anthem with this song, keeping in line with their past electronic experiments.
The opening therimin sound made me think an alien was about to land but the track quickly settles to a heavy synth bass with piano and vocals. When we hit the chorus we get some lovely staccato strings that quickly become legato to smooth over the electronic sounds before the alien appears again. The track carries on in much the same way, with an enveloping vocal break in the middle that really showcases Dan’s beautiful tone.
Although this isn’t a track that screams out to you and makes you go ‘I must find out everything about this band’, it is lovely to listen to and quite relaxing and would definitely do well in that slushy peak in a classic rom com.
Laughter Lines comes from the extended cut of Bastilles debut album ‘Bad Blood’ which contains many of the songs from their 2013 single releases with EMI (via Virgin). I would however recommend going back to their 2011 release Aqua Lung/Farewell My Lovely and You Make me Feel/Head Space. Two very chilled electro/house EPs that really show you where they started and where they’re going.
Although not an in your face, ‘That was amazing’ track for us here at TWSH, it’s far from awful and will be slotting in nicely to our current music collection. These guys could definitely be something big, can’t wait to see what comes next!
-TWSH
Download Laughter Lines and Bad Blood
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