Bastille have announced their new album ‘&’, and shared the first four songs from it – listen to the new tracks below.

The album, which is described as a “collection of story songs”, will be released in full on October 25 and you can pre-order it here. For now, they have released ‘Part One’ of the album, which consists of four new tracks: ‘Intros & Narrators’, ‘Eve & Paradise Lost’, ‘Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky’ and ‘Seasons & Narcissus’.

Listen to the blissed out, fingerpicked tracks below, which find Dan Smith and co in folky, reflective form, set to lush, warm production.

The first track, ‘Intros & Narrators’, comes complete with a new video, which was captured in a single take while in the Sargasso Sea in the Bermuda Triangle earlier this year. Smith was invited by Greenpeace to the location, which is one of the most important marine ecosystems in the world, to help raise awareness of the importance of protecting our oceans.

Watch the video here:

[embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=-oyOHAew3Bc&feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1[/embed]

The remainder of the album’s tracks will be released in three further ‘Parts’ in the coming months ahead of the full album release in October.

Bastille have also released a video of Smith introducing fans to the album’s central concept and the making of the music. Watch here:

[embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jj7eO99Ro3o&feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1[/embed]

“I’ve always loved writing story songs,” he says in the video, “and using tales of other people as a way into making music and talking about my experiences in life. Over the last few years, I’ve been working on a whole load of songs about people who I think are fascinating and whose lives really spoke to me.”

He explains that the band chose to take a break from touring at the end of last year, and in January he made a plan to record the new material he had written.

“For me, it’s been the most brilliant, fun and chilled process, while also trying to do justice to the lives and stories of these amazing people. And now I’m really excited to start sharing it with you.”

Another track from the album, ‘Blue Sky & The Painter’, featured in a video that Smith filmed while on the same journey in the Bermuda Triangle. Smith plays the song with the sun setting beyond the vast Atlantic Ocean behind him. Watch that video, made in connection with Greenpeace, here:

[embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=en1IObjskk8&feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1[/embed]

In other news, Bastille were one of many bands who have read out letters from Palestinians suffering in Gaza as part of a ‘Voices For Gaza’ initiative.

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