Give Me the Future

Bastille is a band on familiar terms with looming disaster. Even their album about a night out was called Doom Days, a title that feels all the more prescient considering that the COVID-19 global pandemic brought everything to a halt less than a year after its release. It's not surprising, then, that they found plenty of inspiration during lockdown-induced screen time. Give Me the Future's hyperarticulate songs channel Doom Days' escapism into a virtual world and muse on the ramifications, both good and bad. Dan Smith and company set the tone with "Distorted Light Beam," a piece of gleaming electropop that sells the boundless potential of a virtual life -- and hints at just how quickly the boundaries between fantasy and reality can vanish.