Album: Bastille - &

Grandiloquent indie-synth-pop outfit Bastille have been around for over a decade. Three of their four albums have been chart-toppers (the other one still made Top 5 and went Gold). They are no flash in the pan.

Head honcho Dan Smith now presents a fifth album, &, that, he says, “feels like someone talking to you, rather than turning up the volume”. Returning to his pre-success solo incarnation, he’s trying a style of music mainly associated with thoughtful 1970s American singer-songwriters. Thing is, he just can’t help laying on the over-production.

In the manner of, say, Al Stewart, Smith pens a set of historical story-songs based around everyone from Oscar Wilde to singer-activist Paul Robeson to 19^th century female Chinese pirate Zheng Yi Sao. “I never wanted to be the main character, pretty fucked up there in the light,” he sings on likeable acoustic opener “Intros & Narrators”, “I’d rather sit at the kitchen table and just start to hitchhike.”

At its best, the album achieves his goals, on the likes of the Nick Mulvey-ish “Emily and her Penthouse in the Sky”, about Emily Dickinson, “Mademoiselle and the Nunnery Blaze”, and “The Seasons and Narcissus”. But, as the latter song progresses, it proves he just can’t help himself; multitracking arrives, epic tendencies take over. And there’s more of this than the low-key. “Drawbridge & the Baroness”, for instance, is completely over-the-top (although it doesn’t matter as it’s a cracking tune). Even when Smith is writing witty lyrics about Marie Curie, by the end of the tune he’s well into Gary Barlow territory, production-wise.

The album is self-indulgent and pretentious but, in our age of cultural inanity, that is often what’s good about it. I can take or leave the occasional trite lyrics, the songs about Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan that don’t quite hit their mark, but midway through Smith demonstrates glorious pop suss, with a smart, heart-elevating song about conquering depression, “Blue Sky & The Painter”. “Is that a blue sky? Is that a blue sky? It’s about damn time! It’s about damn time!” runs the euphoric chorus. Whatever else, I keep coming back to this one.

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Below: watch the video for "Blue Sky & The Painter" by Bastille