Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

Genre folk Publisher Astralwerks External Links Official Bat For Lashes Website

Okay, look, whatever, my fault: Bat For Lashes is not what I thought it was, which was like, say, Annie. Or Robyn. Y’know—that sole girl singer over subpar techno. I would say Kylie Minogue, but she was doing it before anybody else, and she’s actually talented. I think maybe it was Bat For Lashes’ logo, all angular and retro, that led me to think this.

But, joke’s on me, Bat For Lashes is freak folk, more in the vein of Vetiver than Madonna. The songs on Two Suns are pure fantasy, all knights and elves and suns shining down upon the meadows. “Glass,” the album’s first song, tells you all you need to know about the rest of the album: Natasha Khan using her impressive range to expressively sing over tribal drumming and buzzy synthetic bass, with lyrics such as “I’ll make a suit of colors / To stop the blinding mirrors / Sew a cape of red and gold / to stifle up the beam.”

Khan is an incredibly resourceful singer. Although she tends to stick around a lower alto talky sort of range, like Sarah Nixey of Black Box Recorder, she is more than comfortable belting out the high notes. Her voice gives the album a total psychedelic bend—she sounds like watching a person fall into a lake in slow motion. Her voice is vulnerable and confessional and beautiful, and she’s a total tremolo freak, like Joanna Newsome, but tolerable.

Unlike her hirsute contemporaries, Khan utilizes electronic music to elevate her music to an otherworldly plane. What’s interesting is that, on that plane, there are many rooms and many feelings, but everyone has vanished. With the clever use of spacey samples and plinky keys, Bat For Lashes can take the listener to the coldest, loneliest place (“Two Planets”) or to the warmest bedroom, albeit still pretty lonely (“Moon and Moon”). This is not a multi-player album. This is pretty much the definition of headphone music.

And, yes, I recommend headphones here, because Bat For Lashes is, as said before, pretty clever, and stuffs music and tones into every crevice of Two Suns. “Peace of Mind” sounds like there’s a person in the background opening or closing a door every so often, which I promise you is intentional, and it gives the song a nervous, paranoid feeling, only intensified with the gospel choir (!) kicks in at the breakdown. On “Travelling Woman,” which is sort of an early Cat Power joint, Khan’s voice is in the background with, I don’t know, I counted at least four different tones. Do you like reverb? It is here in spades.

Every song on Two Suns works on different levels and is constantly intriguing, but none so much as the album closer “The Big Sleep,” which features iconic creepy guy Scott Walker backing Khan up on vocals. There’s very little music besides a baby grand lead, letting Khan and Walker to battle for who is most evocative and maudlin. It leads anyone listening in a very dark place, and while you’re there, listening to the bleat of an open sine wave in the last dying embers, you can faintly hear Khan laugh. It’s scary, dramatic, and utterly brilliant, which sums up the album perfectly.