Their fourth album, the masterful Give Me The Future, was hailed by many critics as their best release to date, with The Fader describing it as “a grand collection of sci-fi inspired songs attempting to make sense of the world’s fast-moving venture into dystopia.”

He doesn’t want people to think this was a magical or aspirational transformation. “It didn’t suddenly instil me with loads of confidence,” he says. “For a long time, I still identified as a bigger guy, and still do to this day.” I think a lot of people suffer from different versions of body dysmorphia,” he says. “We all have the version of ourselves that we see in our own heads and often that’s so different from the version of who we are through other people’s eyes.”Johnson, Chloe (4 February 2022). "Bastille - Give Me The Future". MusicOMH . Retrieved 28 May 2023. Smith says: “It’s really satisfying to have finally directed, and I’m really proud of the little film we made. I grew up with film as my main obsession, so this was a bit of a dream. I learned a sh_tload and it was good to be challenged in a new way.” Here’s the chorus to “Distorted Light Beam,” delivered over pumping drum machine and noir-disco synth: “When I’m dreaming tonight, I can do anything/When I’m dreaming tonight, I can go anywhere/When I’m dreaming tonight, I can be anyone.” This may be testament to Smith’s catchy hooks. Since the release of Bastille’s first album, it has been a decade of No 1s, award nominations and sell-out tours. Commercial success was swift, although critical acclaim followed more slowly. A fourth album, Give Me the Future, is released next month. I was thinking about Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver and all the acoustic artists who manage to write music that is both orchestral and floaty, but also a grounded in some grit,” he says. “It was very much at odds with all of the synthesizers, drum machines, and electronic instruments and the production that we were using for Give Me The Future, but I feel super proud of it.”

Austriancharts.at – Bastille – Give Me the Future" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 15 February 2022. Their fourth album contains a good chunk of more-ish electro-pop, but I can’t handle the cuts with horrible Eighties stadium choruses, major key cheese, and showboating by that breathy, whooping, and very particular voice. Overall, though, Give Me the Future feels like a grower, especially if you don’t share my aversion to those details. This is a love letter to Keith Haring and the ’80s New York art-party scene. If you could plug in and go anywhere and be anything, what an amazing place to potentially go and be. I think he’s such a wonderful character, such an inclusive artist who just wanted to take art to everybody, and was just so feverishly, obsessively creating all the time. This song is imagining that we are him arriving in New York with all this hope and optimism and finding this amazing art scene. It’s another hopeful, optimistic, organic party moment within this quite digital album.”a b Neale, Matthew (27 October 2021). "Bastille announce major UK arena tour for 2022". NME . Retrieved 17 November 2021. But this intense, sudden rise to fame “freaked out” the fame-averse Smith, who is happy with the fact that many people have heard Bastille’s music, but have no idea what he looks like. “I was hugely self-deprecating as a defence mechanism,” he says. “I was always such a huge pessimist. We all worked so hard on the band at the beginning – and continue to – because we loved it. But I’ve always been expecting it to fall apart at any moment. I think that’s why I never think too far in the future.”