Give Me The Future + Dreams Of The Past

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Cush, Andy (14 February 2022). "Bastille: Give Me the Future Album Review". Pitchfork . Retrieved 15 February 2022.

Drop the needle at any point in the album, and hear Smith’s proclamations that he is in the future, and he can do anything, and be anyone, and the simulation is like a dream, a dream that is good but perhaps so good that it’s also bad. The songs are virtually interchangeable. The chorus is about the intimacy of human connection in the context of some science fiction, space-centred imagery. But it’s also about the idea of those amazingly thoughtful people who spend their lives trying to change the world in a positive way,” Dan explained. “I’m totally over-awed by people like that – if you’re one of them, like an inventor, activist or scientist, you have to have the ability to imagine a version of the future that’s better than what currently exists, and then have that energy to actually work to make it happen. Alongside all the other things life throws at you.”The title is ominous. Bastille have always been the go-to band for pop-centred positivity, but Give Me The Future at title glance seems to beg for something more post-pandemic, as opposed to finding the light within it. Yet the album still manages to deliver Bastille’s signature heavy happiness, even if by abandoning the present.

Since the release of the record, Bastille have created an immersive experience at their sold-out gigs, bringing the themes of the album to life in arenas across the UK and on a tour of North America. At this year’s Glastonbury Festival, such was the demand to witness their secret set the festival organizers had to cordon off the surrounding area at the 1,000-capacity William’s Green tent as festivalgoers tried to descend in the masses to catch a glimpse of their secret performance. But this intense, sudden rise to fame “freaked out” the fame-averse Smith, who is happy with the fact that many people have heard Bastille’s music, but have no idea what he looks like. “I was hugely self-deprecating as a defence mechanism,” he says. “I was always such a huge pessimist. We all worked so hard on the band at the beginning – and continue to – because we loved it. But I’ve always been expecting it to fall apart at any moment. I think that’s why I never think too far in the future.” Following on from playing festivals such as Boardmasters, Sziget, and Reading & Leeds this weekend, they’ll take the “Give Me The Future” tour to South America, stopping in Argentina and Brazil, before continuing an enthralling trek across Europe. Austriancharts.at – Bastille – Give Me the Future" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 15 February 2022. Before his third year at university, he went travelling in Thailand and caught a virus. He lost his appetite and the weight fell off. When he returned home he started eating more healthily and exercised more. That summer, his weight dropped six stone. “When I lost loads of weight and suddenly just looked like a different person, it’s quite a … I think for anyone that’s gone through quite a big, radical physical transformation it can be a fair thing to get your head around.” For a long time I identified as a bigger guy and still do to this day Dan SmithHe doesn’t want people to think this was a magical or aspirational transformation. “It didn’t suddenly instil me with loads of confidence,” he says. “For a long time, I still identified as a bigger guy, and still do to this day.” Over the course of their previous three albums, Bastille have cemented a reputation for building whole worlds around their releases, often doing so with innovative award-winning creativity. Give Me The Future is no different, this time accompanied by a fictional, but familiar tech giant called Future Inc, the creators of an invention called Futurescape – a device which allows users to live out their dreams virtually.

It’s such a cliche, but you can hear 100 nice things and you remember the one that’s not. It’s such a human thing. And maybe it’s an anxious-person thing to fixate on the negative.” Critics were kinder to later albums Wild World (another UK No 1) and Doom Days (which peaked at No 4 in the UK), and in 2015 the band were nominated for a Grammy. Their fourth album contains a good chunk of more-ish electro-pop, but I can’t handle the cuts with horrible Eighties stadium choruses, major key cheese, and showboating by that breathy, whooping, and very particular voice. Overall, though, Give Me the Future feels like a grower, especially if you don’t share my aversion to those details.Here’s the chorus of “Give Me the Future,” whose drum machine, to be fair, pumps a little more slowly than the other two: “Give me the future/It’s golden and bright/Catch a fever dream/In the flash of the lights.” If that one isn’t similar enough to the other two, don’t worry; Smith reminds us he can “be anything” in the song’s third line.