Artist: Bat For Lashes
Album: Two Suns
Year: 2009
Grade: 4 pretzels
Apparently, Fever Ray isn’t the only album coming out this month that is thoroughly in debt to Bjork. Bat For Lashes, the performing name for English songwriter Natasha Khan, has been getting rave reviews with her second album, Two Suns. With the exception of one song (the eerie “What’s A Girl To Do”), I wasn’t exactly blown out of the water by her debut, Fur And Gold. The post-Bjork, post-Kate Bush sound has never been my favorite and I’ve heard too many artists massacre it (Regina Spector), even when they have the best of intentions. Thankfully, Two Suns isn’t a complete travesty. However, I definitely think it has some glaring flaws.
Let’s start with the strengths. Khan can certainly make some damn theatric music. Lush and moody, with lots of sparkling piano lines and echoing synth washes, it’s hard to ignore music like this. She also has a very unique voice. I would never call it a “good voice,” but it isn’t “bad” either. It accomplishes what is needed for the songs, whispering and crying with equal skill. The best songs here are full of mystery and intrigue, ranging from the dance-oriented “Daniel” to the stark, rhythmic opener “Glass”. There are plenty of good ideas running around here, creating an album that is a radical improvement over her debut.
However, all those good ideas can clutter things up. This album seems to be trying to do so many things at once, it forgets to take a step back and let each song grow naturally. "Siren Song”, which begins as a fairly sweet piano ballad, begins making strange left turns as it goes on, adding overwrought, bombastic drums and clanging keyboards. It also introduces Khan’s “alter-ego,” named Pearl. If the whole Beyonce/Sasha Fierce debacle was any indication, we should know by now that alter-egos don’t work in music (that is, if you’re not named David Bowie). This conceptual side of Two Suns seems tacked on and doesn’t fit with the album’s best songs. Instead, it just distracts attention from everything around it.
For me, this album simply never clicks. The individual songs can be quite lovely, but they don’t flow into each other very well. All the various ideas jammed together in the songs make it a strange and unsettling listen. It becomes hard to relax, as you wonder when some big, glaring sound is going to crash in and ruin an otherwise enjoyable song. Khan even wastes a rare guest spot by the one-and-only Scott Walker on the album’s closing track, “The Big Sleep”. In Walker, Khan had a chance to duet with one of the few artists more overtly dramatic than herself, but instead, Walker is left singing a fairly routine backing vocal. It’s a shocking missed opportunity. It’s true that Two Suns shows remarkable artistic growth for Khan. However, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully, next time around, everything will work just right.
Let’s start with the strengths. Khan can certainly make some damn theatric music. Lush and moody, with lots of sparkling piano lines and echoing synth washes, it’s hard to ignore music like this. She also has a very unique voice. I would never call it a “good voice,” but it isn’t “bad” either. It accomplishes what is needed for the songs, whispering and crying with equal skill. The best songs here are full of mystery and intrigue, ranging from the dance-oriented “Daniel” to the stark, rhythmic opener “Glass”. There are plenty of good ideas running around here, creating an album that is a radical improvement over her debut.
However, all those good ideas can clutter things up. This album seems to be trying to do so many things at once, it forgets to take a step back and let each song grow naturally. "Siren Song”, which begins as a fairly sweet piano ballad, begins making strange left turns as it goes on, adding overwrought, bombastic drums and clanging keyboards. It also introduces Khan’s “alter-ego,” named Pearl. If the whole Beyonce/Sasha Fierce debacle was any indication, we should know by now that alter-egos don’t work in music (that is, if you’re not named David Bowie). This conceptual side of Two Suns seems tacked on and doesn’t fit with the album’s best songs. Instead, it just distracts attention from everything around it.
For me, this album simply never clicks. The individual songs can be quite lovely, but they don’t flow into each other very well. All the various ideas jammed together in the songs make it a strange and unsettling listen. It becomes hard to relax, as you wonder when some big, glaring sound is going to crash in and ruin an otherwise enjoyable song. Khan even wastes a rare guest spot by the one-and-only Scott Walker on the album’s closing track, “The Big Sleep”. In Walker, Khan had a chance to duet with one of the few artists more overtly dramatic than herself, but instead, Walker is left singing a fairly routine backing vocal. It’s a shocking missed opportunity. It’s true that Two Suns shows remarkable artistic growth for Khan. However, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully, next time around, everything will work just right.
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