Want your song on the Jukebox? Cover “Rhythm is a Dancer” to increase your chances…
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[6.12]
Anthony Easton: Named after two disasters — one natural that ended an empire, one man-made that began one, — and sounding wry and lonely, with an introduction that sounds heavily metaphoric. The central question, one of how to become an optimist, could be read as both ironic and straight faced. The problem is that it fails to work out that being an optimist as an ironic choice is not only more legitimate, it might be the more interesting one. Extra point for the chanting near the end.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: I originally thought the booming choruses and general booming-ness of this song felt a little over the top for a song comparing the end of a relationship to Pompeii. But after listening to it a bunch more, I’m convinced this is actually about the real Pompeii, and the grandiose sound works in that context. It also turns a line like “how am I going to be an optimist about this” into something darkly funny, lending “Pompeii” a slight grin in the face of historical terror.
[7]
Brad Shoup: The bullfrog chorus gets really funny when wedged into the drum kit’s tempo. Really, the drummer’s way too busy here, taking time for undercooked solo measures and persistent stick skitter. If he was trying to stuff my brain so “the rubble or our sins” couldn’t fit… didn’t work.
[4]
Alfred Soto: English rock bands who want hits must live in a Coldplayed world. This one tosses in a male choir and tribal drums for no apparent reason other than for exoticism.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Pompeii” is three-minutes of safe, ultra-polished, earnest, choral-group, faux-grandeur, but I can’t bring myself to hate it for being so efficiently professional. It’s like hating a juicer for going through the motions: mechanical and unexciting but, hey, it does its job well enough.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Britpop of a particularly earnest sort that still makes room for a slippery New Order-esque synth bass and an African chant of a hook that straddles the delicate line between charmingly pretentious and crushingly pompous. The singer, while not blessed with the most interesting or expressive voice, nevertheless displays enough conviction in his own creation that his enthusiasm carries it.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Bastille seem (or seems, given that they appear to actually only be one person most of the time) to have a canny knack of balancing a distinctive, recognisable sound and positioning somewhere in the region of “credible” with a lack of very much new to bring to the table, just radio friendliness. Accordingly, someone like Zane Lowe will like them (or at least “respect what they’re doing”) and they’ll also be considered a suitable match for something like, say, Dancing On Ice. “Pompeii” won’t exactly scare the pigeons, but then it doesn’t have to.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: Bastille cast a cold eye to “Tarzan Boy,” declare it too poignant, and transform it into a song about an entire city’s incineration and asphyxiation. Somehow it comes out sounding giddier than fucking “Tarzan Boy.”
[7]