It’s just five years since South Londoner, Dan, started Bastille alone in his bedroom, releasing 300 copies of Bastille’s debut single. Relentless gigging, genuine word of mouth and some smartly curated mixtapes meant that within three years — and with Chris Wood (drums), Will Farquarson (guitar) and Kyle Simmons (keyboards) added to the line-up, Bastille became a global phenomenon; the band’s chart-conquering debut album ‘Bad Blood’ selling over 4m albums alongside 11m singles. In the UK, the twice No. 1 album was certified double-platinum and named the biggest-selling digital album of 2013. Hit singles ‘Pompeii’, ‘Flaws’, ‘Laura Palmer’ and ‘Things We Lost In The Fire’ helped Bastille become that year’s biggest-selling global breakthrough act, with over a billion Spotify streams and in turn earning the band British Breakthrough at the following year’s Brits, along with two Grammy nominations. 

And that, it turns out, was only the beginning. Bastille’s second album ‘Wild World’ retains the vivid, rich, filmic song-writing of its predecessor but pushes the band’s distinctive sound in exciting new directions. Lyrically, too, it’s a leap forward. “If our first album was about growing up and freaking out about it” Dan explains, “Our second is about trying to make sense of the world around you, both as you see it and as it’s presented to you through the media. It’s also about asking questions of the world and of the people in it. We wanted the album to be a bit disorientating - at times extroverted and introverted, light and dark.”

‘Wild World’ is spearheaded by single, ‘Good Grief’ - unmistakably a Bastille song, and fans who immersed themselves in Bastille’s early, dialogue-strewn mixtapes will enjoy its sampling of Kelly Le Brock from 80s movie Weird Science, but across ‘Wild World’ you’ll find numerous new additions to the band’s sonic architecture.

A sense of escapism runs through ‘Wild World’, but at the heart of it all is a fascination with the human condition, and the relationships we all forge, fight over and sometimes forget.