Keane’s first album, Hopes And Fears, is such a classic — arguably the magnum opus of one of the UK’s greatest bands ever — that the idea of someone doing a new remix of one of those songs worried me. Especially when I heard that the song in question was going to be “Bend And Break,” which is one of my favorite tracks from the album. Suffice to say that I really thought I was going to hate this. But it’s actually quite wonderful. And where Basto truly succeeds is in making it sound like a club remix of the song would have sounded if one had been released in 2004 when Hopes And Fears was all the rage. Don’t get me wrong — it doesn’t actually sound out-dated. But it doesn’t sound overly modern either. On one hand, the beats are monstrous and thick enough to compete with anything on the dancefloor today. On the other, the synth and glitchy goodness are pretty retro, more like what you would have gotten from a Riton remix a decade ago. To that end, it sounds like Thin White Duke did a remix of “Bend And Break” and then he gave it to Riton and Riton remixed the remix. In any case, if you like Keane and you like club mixes then this is certainly a must-have track for you. And if you’re simply a big EDM junkie, like half the people on the planet are right now, then this is one you’d likely savor in your collection, too.
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