It's a sad sad planet: Bat For Lashes

Bat For Lashes is the stage name of Natascha Khan, daughter to a Pakistanian dad and an English mother. She grew up in Pakistan and then moved to Brighton, England. She is an art graduate and released her debut album "Fur and Gold" in 2006, which spawned the remarkable, eerie single "What's a girl to do" with the very Donnie Darko-ish video. Her second album "Two Suns" got released in April 2009 and again earned her succesful single, namely "Daniel" video.

I only recently started checking her out, picked up the album at the library with low expectations, but liked it a lot, and went on to check her debut album also. Many people and fans of the early hour seem to prefer the debut album over the sophomore album, whereas I'm still not sure. It's always hard to value albums if you get to know them in reverse chronological order.

"Fur And Gold" is probably liked best because it has a more uniform, pretty minimal, eerie sound. It has prolonged percussionless parts, and songs tend to center around Khan's voice and piano playing. Some songs tend to emotionally erupt with the addition of strings, more or less like Sigur Ros. Lyrically, it's a division between the real and a fantasy world. It has the Springsteen "I'm on fire" song as a bonus track, and every track has something going for it. Opener "Horse and I" and forgotten single "Prescilla" are the more dynamic tracks, whereas "Tahiti" and "Sad eyes" are the better slower tracks. Personal favorites would have to be:

"The wizard", which was the first single she ever released, and features one of her trademarked simple, beautiful yet eerie piano melodies:

"Bat's mouth" is an example of the swelling, emotional eruption, which is a really abysmal description.

"Two suns" features a couple of tracks that could've been on the debut album ("Moon and moon", "Travelling woman"), but a lot of tracks try to experiment with some new musical styles: Disco ("Daniel", "Pearl's dream", "Sleep Alone") and some tribal drums and sounds (the great opening track "Glass"). Not the biggest fan of the gospel influence in "Peace of mind", and closing track "The big sleep" fails to hit the spot with me either.

Personal favourites are:

"Siren Song", which is comparable to the "Bat's mouth" track on the debut album, a haunting song about the clash between Khan and her evil alter ego, Pearl.