A diamond in a coal mine !

Bastille, one of the lesser known bands in the mainstream music market (…in my opinion). I honestly heard their song Doom Days just last week and I absolutely love it to this day! This is their second single and title track for their third album by the same name (obviously). I haven’t really listened to Bastille a lot, at certain times I have crossed passed with these guys, like when one of their songs ‘Grip’ with DJ duo Seeb came up on my You Tube recommended or when their song ‘Happier’ with Marshmello topped the charts. So I have an idea to some extent the whole musical vibe of this British band.

Starting off with the lyrics, the main theme of the song is love which is expressed through a number of analogies of phone and world apocalypse. You may think “What kind of weird mixture is that?”…let me stop you. Yes, it is a weird combination but on the other hand it is also very unique and interesting way to present a very common theme in the music arena. When I first heard the song, I literally thought that this could be a theme song for an upcoming apocalypse game or movie. This is the impact this song creates. The song starts off with the chorus –

When I watch the world burn
All I think about is you
When I watch the world burn
All I think about is you

Which I feel does a perfect job of setting the mood for the song. You can absolutely foresee the apocalypse theme coming up as the song starts.

The first and the only verse in the song starts off after this spectacular intro and continues to move the tale on. A fun fact about this song is that the verse covers almost the entirety of the song and very impressively never makes us feel the lack of chorus in the song. The verse is very fulfilling and complete in its own way. The whole story is conveyed in the verse with the use of some amazing analogies and props. Following are some of my favorite lines –

There must be something in the Kool-Aid
Cruising through the doom days

  The interesting thing about this line is the fact that how easily the writer has slipped in such a simple and more or less childish thing ‘Kool-Aid’ to try to depict something much more serious than that.

Another line is –

We'll stay offline so no one gets hurt

Hiding from the real world

Just don't read the comments ever, ever

This line uses phone and social media to depict love which, like I said I for the most part find extremely interesting. Like we hear the words ‘offline’ and ‘comments’ and other technology related terminology in other songs too but this songs whole theme is based off of these and we get to hear such words a lot of times in the song. In all, the lyrics are well- written and definitely attention-grabbing. The song tries to portray themes of love in a different kind of way, in which it undoubtly succeeds.

The next thing I wanna talk about is production. This song very beautifully crafted and a lot of thought has gone into the production, which can be very well seen. The song is a perfect blend of highly energetic parts and less energetic acoustic parts. The song starts off with a guitar note with some faded voices in the back ground to give the sense of sadness and destruction and to acquaint the person with the whole vibe of the song. Dan’s vocals start off immediately after with immense auto tune embedded into it, which further enhances the dark, gloomy nature of the song. This is one the many reasons I earlier said that a lot of thought has gone into production of this song. After completing the intro/chorus, the song carries on the same beat into the chorus and gradually builds up to energy packed arears. After every 6 lines the beats gain momentum which bursts into a spectacular high after which the beats fall again. This pattern is followed throughout the song and this makes the song extremely thrilling and exhilarating to listen. In the outro chorus, more power is added on top of the momentum already gained from the verse which results in a very massive and lively conclusion to the song. Even though the band has used softened drum beats in the song, they have managed to create a very powerful and enjoyable experience. Talking about Dan’s vocals, I don’t really have any complaints; his voice is unique and pretty soothing to hear too. Auto tune is used but only to an extent where it felt justifiable and made the listening experience more enriching.

Now to conclude, I would like to say that every ones in a while we come across a song which really gets into our heads and stays for a long time. I cannot promise you that you will enjoy this song as much as I did, but I assure you, this song is definitely worth a listen. With the amount of creativity and thought gone into this song, I consider this song as one of the more peculiar yet enjoyable songs out there, with its quirky pacing and weird lyrics. Bastille tried something new and in my opinion it really paid off. Doom Days is certainly a very interesting piece of music.