Bastille has been riding the wave their album Bad Blood created in March. Since then the 15 track album has grossed nearly a quarter million in the UK alone, remaining on its top 10 list since release and having all 44,000 tickets to their UK tour sold in a day. This UK sensation consisting of Writer/Singer Daniel Smith, Drummer Chris Wood, Bassist William Farquarson and Keyboard player Kyle Simmons, has since made its way onto the American music scene with its soft, electronica influenced ballads of pause and reflection.

I was in a somber mood at the time I first listened to the album and the music stuck with me, specifically a song titled “Flaws”. “Flaws” is a little more upbeat than the other songs but keeps with the overall sound of the album with a great opening synthesizer beat that is visited again throughout the song. While first listening to it, it seemed to allude to some sort of romantic situation but the more I listen to it the more its meaning became clear. The song has to do with how it feels to be self conscious and uncomfortable around people with no shame. The music video, directed by front man Smith, further reinforced the idea by depicting a self conscious person enjoying himself at an amusement park with a group of girls in skeleton makeup, girls who wore their “flaws upon their sleeve” as the song goes. The song is very relatable and I find myself humming it in my head from time to time.

“Bad Blood”, the song the album was named for, deals with the falling out of a friendship through the years. It begins with a reminiscence of when they were young and by the chorus “All this bad blood here, won’t you let it dry? It’s been cold for years, won’t you let it lie?” you know it ended bitterly and the speaker is trying to make up for something in the past. “Pompeii”, another significant track, uses the metaphor of the city of ash to describe people’s emotions as their life tumbles down around them. They panic as “Great clouds roll over the hills, Bringing darkness from above” but then immerse themselves in the comfort of memories “But if you close your eyes, Does it almost feel like, Nothing changed at all?” The whole album revolves around taking a step back from where you’re at and looking at the person you’ve become, for better or worse.

The album was great, I liked the sound and the message but after I listened to it a little longer, it began to drown itself. The songs are good but blend into each other in a sort of melancholy blandness. The tempo of the album is very slow with the exception of “Flaws” and “The Silence”. “The Silence” caught my attention after listening to the album for awhile because of how it had the same sound but at an elevated tempo. If there was a little more diversity within the album, I could see myself buying tickets to a concert but at the moment I would probably “add variety” to my current Pandora stations for when I’m feeling a little blue. Overall, I would give the album 3 out of 5.