Bastille - "Bad Blood". 5/5 stars

My first thought upon listening to this album was “This is the most upbeat existential crisis I’ve ever heard.”  The songs calm down a bit toward the middle but never lose that opening energy.  The music video for the title track just adds to the morbid fascination.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F90Cw4l-8NY  The power comes from the narrator embracing the angst, making it a part of who and what he is, most vividly so in the transformation of his eyes, those gateways of the soul, in the first video.

The start representations continue in “Things We Lost in the Fire” with juxtaposing images as much of the modern world as the all-consuming destructiveness of ancient Vesuvius looming over Pompeii.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGR4U7W1dZU&feature=c4-overview&list=UUA3nrVC6HlfDs414V_SYlbQ  

Later in the album, “Laura Palmer” comes to the forefront as a desperate attempt to reclaim the innocence of yesteryear (if you can be nostalgic about the early 1990s).  The painful loss of a lover who simply stopped caring is drawn forth from the upwelling depths of a man’s soul.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnSc0bczg0&list=UUA3nrVC6HlfDs414V_SYlbQ

My reviews are usually longer and more substantive than this, so I apologize, dear reader.  But I don’t have much to say other than that this album is as near perfect as one can imagine for what the artist is trying to do.  I hope they can keep it up.

- JHB

Rating: 5/5

Tracklist:

1. Pompeii

2. Things We Lost In The Fire

3. Bad Blood

4. Overjoyed

5. These Streets

6. Weight Of Living, Part I

7. Icarus

8. Oblivion

9. Flaws

10. Daniel In The Den

11. Laura Palmer

12. Get Home

13. The Silence

14. Weight Of Living, Part II

15. Laughter Lines