Album Review: ‘”&” (Ampersand)’ by Bastille

On the 25th of October the band released their fifth studio album & (Ampersand). Smith has stated before that he loves to write songs that tell a story. So, for this album, the band took interesting characters throughout history, pop culture and mythology to include in each of the fourteen songs. It is about a great variety of both real as well as fictional people who have been the inspiration for this project.

The album opens with the introductory track ‘Intros & Narrators’, which starts with the immensely fast strumming of the acoustic guitar and Smith vocalising over it. “I never wanted to be main character,” Smith opens the first verse with, where the guitar has slowed it down to make room for these lyrics. In this first song, Smith cleverly introduces the concept of the album, stating in the pre-chorus that “maybe to me, other stories are more interesting.” In the chorus, the faster guitar returns while Smith demands the listener to “take a walk with [him] through these lives.” The entire track is an acoustic one that does not yet tell the story of anyone except Smith himself, the “unreliable narrator.” The track was the first to be released from this album last July together with three other songs: ‘Eve & Paradise Lost’, ‘Seasons & Narcissus’ and ‘Emily & Her Penthouse in the Sky’ before the band announced the full project.

The second track on the album, and the first to tell one of the total thirteen stories, is ‘Eve & Paradise Lost’. Sung from the perspective of Eve, Smith is telling the story of Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. The track again just features Smith’s vocals and the acoustic guitar. In this version of the story, Smith is stating that eating the forbidden fruit was a unanimous decision, yet Eve is the only one who took the blame for it. Throughout the chorus and post-chorus, where Smith is singing about how “I was made from you,” with Eve being ‘I’ and Adam being ‘you’, as in the Bible Eve came from Adam’s ribs, vocals in the background are harmonising. This creates the feeling of a choir, like one present in many church hymns. In the second verse, Smith also touches on gendered issues, talking about Eve (or the woman) as the one who would be carrying the babies and sins and suffering from pain Adam (a man) could never understand. The track, as it started, ends with the final strum of the guitar before fading out. 

Next up, ‘Emily & Her Penthouse in the Sky’ talks about American poet Emily Dickinson. Smith is telling the story this time from the perspective of Dickinson’s sister Lavinia. An array of guitars and Smith’s faraway vocals come together to tell how Dickinson had been “busy pouring chaos on the page.” Dickinson has often been perceived as a recluse, with Smith in the chorus stating how she “was never hiding in that room.” Instead, “she had better things to do.” It is an adorable song featuring the sisterly love that Lavinia felt for her older sister. The powerful vocals evoked by Smith, especially in each chorus make it a very emotional track. 

‘Blue Sky & The Painter’ opens with lots of harmonizing from Smith as well as what sounds like a gong sounding out in the background. Bastille shared this track before through an acoustic session recorded on a ship in collaboration with Greenpeace UK. While the song was released this way to raise climate change awareness, it also talks about painter Edvard Munch. Munch struggled a lot with alcoholism and mental health problems before being admitted to the hospital in Copenhagen in 1908. His recovery led to a major change in his painting style. Before this, he made paintings such as his famous ‘The Scream’, while afterwards, his artistry became a lot brighter. ‘The Sun’ is but one example of his later artworks. In the chorus of this track, which is backed up by some intense drums and deep guitars, Smith sings “Is that a blue sky? It is about damn time,” stating how he (Munch) found the light after spending a lot of time in the dark. This resonates with the idea that humanity should want to protect these blue spaces, oceans and or skies before we too fall into darkness. It is a lot fiercer than the previous songs on the album so far, yet still so beautiful and carrying such an important message. 

Like the previous two songs, ‘Leonard & Marianne’ again speaks of, in this case, two, very real people – and the love shared between them. Leonard Cohen was a Canadian folk singer who fell in love with Marianne Ihlen, for whom he wrote many of his songs. The track opens with the piano and is written from the perspective of Cohen, who is lying with someone in New York who is not Marianne. In his head, however, he is just thinking about her. Throughout the track, the listener is also treated to a haunting array of strings and a choir harmonizing in the chorus. However, while Cohen is still constantly thinking about Marianne, he does tell her in this song to “never take me back again” as he is not good enough for him anyway. Smith, as Cohen, emphasises this, especially in the final post-chorus and end of the song. This is a haunting track of a love lost but never forgotten.

Marie in the next song ‘Marie & Polonium’ refers to Marie Skłodowska-Curie, the Polish-French scientist who made many important discoveries within her field. One of those was the element polonium, the second part of this track’s title. A fast-paced instrument plays throughout this track, like the ticking of Newton’s cradle, or a fast metronome – giving the feeling of being in the lab with this extraordinary female scientist. In this song, Smith is not singing from Marie’s perspective, but about her, in the second verse talking about how she left Warsaw to go to Paris, where she faced “more closed doors.” Like the song ‘Eve & Paradise Lost’, this track speaks of gendered issues – as a woman, she faced lots more scrutiny in her field than men would have.  

The next track ‘Red Wine & Wilde’ is about the Irish author Oscar Wilde, best known for his classic novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Returning to the acoustic guitar, this song is a more sensual one. Known for his lavish lifestyle, Wilde was eventually imprisoned for ‘gross indecency’ as he was a man who lay with other men. In this emotive track, one lover is singing to another stating how “you could stay, make mistakes till daylight.” In the night, in a state of drunkenness, these mistakes happen – only to be forgotten again the next morning. Especially the bridge in this song is interesting, stating “these gospel preaching promises neither of us believe,” possibly alluding to the sexuality of Wilde and his lovers not aligning with the church’s views. It is lovely how many issues Bastille has touched on in this album so far, including sexism, homophobia, and climate change.

Moving on to a song about a mythological figure, ‘Seasons & Narcissus’ talks about Narcissus, “the original godfather of vanity,” who was cursed to fall in love with his reflection. In the introduction, the listener hears a small part of an audio of someone laughing, before it cuts to the actual guitar and harmonizing which is a prominent feature on this album. In the first verse, Smith as Narcissus sings how “I think it’ll be the death of me,” In the original story, Narcissus fails to leave his reflection he sees in a pool of water and eventually dies as a result. In the chorus, Narcissus is wondering if this love he is feeling is real – it seems he does not realize what has been happening to him. While the seasons keep changing, Narcissus remains where he found his ‘lover’. In the bridge Smith sings how he does not “care that time just keeps on marching on” while the music in the background slowly but steadily speeds up, making this the climax of this particular song. It ends with a final chorus, in which female backing vocals can be heard singing out the lyrics, before fading out.

The ninth track on the album is ‘Drawbridge & The Baroness’, which is a story about a story rather than about a person or figure. In the so-called drawbridge dilemma, the baron warns his wife, the baroness, not to leave the castle while he is gone. The baroness, however, felt herself grow bored and ordered the drawbridge to be lowered so she could visit her secret lover. When she returns, she finds the drawbridge cannot be crossed. The song opens with the baroness singing “Why did you pull the drawbridge up on me?”, stating that she could not get back in because she had no way to re-enter the castle on the island. From the first verse onwards, Smith tells the baroness’ story of finding she cannot go back to her home as a result of her actions. “I do stupid shit for love like a sucker for attention,” he sings, the baroness blaming herself. While the first part of the song is yet again just based on the acoustic guitar, massive drums enter from the second verse onwards. As in the original story, the baroness “had no money for the boatman” and her “lover turned her back and walked away. In this version of the story, the baroness’ lover is not a man, but a woman, adding an extra layer to it. Maybe she was not living her life as her true self, married to a man rather than to the woman she loves. The track climaxes with a bridge of explosive instrumental of banging drums and wind instruments and Smith repeating “If I’m dreaming, can I wake up?” before the final, quieter chorus sounds out and ends it all. 

Next up is the only collaboration on this album, ‘Sopraone & Midnight Wonderings’, which Smith sings together with BIM, the stage name of English singer and minister Abimbola Amoako-Gyampah. She has worked with the band several times before after they met each other back in 2017. Her stunning vocals make this a real album highlight, taking listeners back to Bastille’s older sound in the deep, hushed humming that opens up the track. While unclear whose story this song is telling, it is clear that this person is hurting and overthinking everything in the middle of the night. “I think about things we lose too soon” the chorus and bridge sounds. This track focuses more on the vocals rather than the storytelling and references, which is quite refreshing. 

Back to the love stories, the listener is treated to ‘Essie & Paul’ in which Smith sings over another array of strings, creating a song inspired by orchestras and possibly even jazz. The names in the title refer to singer and activist Paul Robeson and his wife Eslanda “Essie” Goode. Paul was one of the most influential participants in the Harlem Renaissance. In the second verse, Smith sings how “we use our minds to light some fires”, possibly referring to the change the couple has brought, later stating how they are “living free and honestly”. In the bridge, however, the couple also reflects on the fact that not everyone got to walk “in this garden that we’ve built”. It is a beautiful homage to a singer and his anthropologist wife who stood together against racism and structural oppression.

Near the end of the album, the listener can find ‘Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze’, which opens with some “la, la, la”s before Smith tells the story of the narrator and their lover. It can be assumed that it is sung by a male lover, as in the chorus a female vocalist – in French – repeats some of his words. “You’re the earth, the moon, the stars, the air in every breath” the chorus ends, which is simply adorable, especially listening to the acoustic guitar yet again – how romantic. The story seems to be taking place in French, yet it is not entirely clear who the ‘mademoiselle’ in question is. Throughout the chorus, some French is already sung by Smith, but the bridge is almost entirely in the language of love. Who would have expected that Bastille, named after a French holiday, would have a huge chunk of a song in French? Once more, the bridge is the song’s true pinnacle, the instruments building up to the perfect height. 

The second to last song on the album is ‘Zheng Yi Sao & Questions for Her’, which opens with fast-paced synths reminiscent of the soundtrack to a pirate film. This is not strange, as Zheng Yi Sao was a Chinese pirate leader in the early 1800s. “How did your name get lost when you’ve built so much?” Smith asks, presumably speaking here from his perspective, wondering how so few people have heard of this female pirate. Again, he discusses a similar theme earlier mentioned in ‘Marie & Polonium’, how women often face more pressure and scrutiny, especially when performing in an environment that is very male-based. The chorus is a passionate one backed up by intense strings and drums, with Smith stating “I’d love to know, how did you do it?” In the second verse, which quiets the song back down, he states that she “made the boys all bend and shake”. It is by far one of the coolest songs on the album, a feminist anthem that stands out both because of its meaning as well as the turbulent instrumentals. 

Finally, the album ends with ‘Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024’, a piano ballad that is sung together with Isla Smith. It may or may not refer to the Dire Straits ‘Telegraph Road’, which that band wrote about a road from Toledo to Detroit that became a main infrastructural point throughout the decades. In Bastille’s song, Smith sings about how “the streets are still lined with those who call ’em home and maybe always will,” talking about how cities influence people and vice versa. It is a lovely song, the longest on the album, and a beautiful one to end the album with. 

In its entirety, & is an interesting concept that is different from other albums Bastille has made, yet still very much Bastille as can be especially heard in songs such as ‘The Sopraono & Midnight Wonderings’ and ‘Blue Sky & The Painter’. While a lot of the album is very much acoustic, it does still feature more than just a guitar – there are drums, there are strings, and there are even occasional synths. It is a haunting, atmospherical project that features lots of interesting stories that garner meaningful conversations about the world we find ourselves in. The band will be embarking on a small series of exclusive concerts where they will be playing the album in full this November, and it will surely sound even better live than in the studio.