Bat For Lashes, Two Suns - Music Review | h Magazine's hmonthly.com

Bat For Lashes, Two Suns - Music Review

Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by Administrator in Music

Two Suns, the sophomore effort of Bat For Lashes, is an album of dualities. Combining soft piano and atmospheric production with the bass and beats of Brooklyn’s nut-bustingest experimental act Yeasayer, multi-instrumentalist Natasha Kahn has crafted a record that could soundtrack both your mother’s bedtime romance novel reading session and your quasi-goth chick kid sister’s homework hour. Throw in a blonde, soul-sucking alter ego, and the record potentially becomes a subconscious exploration of the mainstream attention Bat For Lashes is on the verge of enduring.

While leadoff single “Daniel” is not necessarily the best introduction to the record, being somewhat evocative of Enya crooning over a Final Fantasy mountain ascent with a hipster-thwack dance beat to provide footholds, it’s still sure to get the kids moving. More impressive tracks include “Siren Song”, an exercise in shifting lyrical and musical dynamics that introduces Khan’s foil, “Pearl”, and alternates between tender and towering, and “Two Planets”, where Bat For Lashes’ Bjorkiest beats and vocal phrasings are showcased. Closing out the album is a “holy fuck, really?” duet with famously hermitic Scott Walker that buys the rest of the credibility that Bat For Lashes hadn’t won over yet. Simultaneously familiar and exotic, earthly and otherworldly, Two Suns may not be a first-listen mindblower; however, Khan’s songwriting and production reveal more depth with each listen and her vocals earn comparisons to the revered, established, strong females in popular music like Annie Lennox and PJ Harvey, whose names are consistently showered on her work.

Good For: Mudwrestling with Tori Amos, making out in Halloween costumes, role-play tournaments, flying bicycles, bat people.