Album Review: Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

8 months ago 26th Mar 15:00

Released April 6

Natasha Khan, better known by her pseudonym Bat For Lashes, is the Brighton beauty behind 2006 masterpiece Fur And Gold, nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and two Brit Awards. The album's blend of spooky childhood reveries and magical piano balladry caught the imagination of many, while others dismissed it as tortuous claptrap.

An equally ambitious follow-up from start to finish, Two Suns delves into the philosohpy of the self and duality. Metaphysical ideas about the connectedness of existence are also close to the album's heart. From the sparse, unpredictable arrangement of Glass to the powerful, hypnotic and psychedelic Two Planets, there's a story told through sound at every turn.

Sleep Alone, with its dark disco beat and creepy falsetto vocal is a haunting tune with a message that resonates like the chiming acoustic melody. "Mama told me the dream of love is a two-hearted dream" repeats Khan in her ethereal near-whisper. A killer feature of this woman's music is, in fact, the visceral fragility of her soft, breathy voice.

Taking what could be seen as haughty pretentiousness to a whole other level, the convoluted Siren Song swings between such extremes as the desire for a perfect, wholesome love and the destruction of that love through emotional sabotage. A swaying orchestral number drowned in echo, it's owes a massive debt to the likes of Bjórk, Tori Amos and Kate Bush.

The climactic Pearl's Dream offers by far the most danceable beat on the album and proves that Khan can easily turn her hand to pop should the mood take her. The singer's future in cult appreciation is unquestioned, but pop stardom seems tantalisingly within reach - with the likes of Little Boots and Lady Gaga already forming a large part of 2009's sound, Two Suns might see Bat For Lashes added to the list.

What's truly beautiful about Natasha Khan in comparison though, is that her music invariably feels saturated with emotion and meaning. Sure, the concept here is an outrageously bombastic cliché, but with a mystical array of songs with crystal clear imagery to back it up, the whole thing knits together quite nicely.

An album of epic artistic proportions, its a wonder that Two Suns' gestation took only three years; at times it sounds like it could've taken a lifetime to dream up. Mature, progressive, and entirely fantastical, this is a dynamite album that looks set to confirm its creator as the UK's most fascinating and individual pop princess.