Cienka jest granica między ulotną, kruchą, magiczną muzyką, a niezachwycającym plumkaniem. Niestety, Bat For Lashes ją przekroczyła. Nie brakuje tu ładnych piosenek, urokliwych, a zarazem intrygujących brzmieniowych rozwiązań (“All Your Gold”). Są kompozycyjne perełki (“Laura”, “Rest Your Head”), jest klimat, ciekawe pomysły. Nie zmienił się wyjątkowy, wspaniały głos Natashy Khan. No to czemu się czepiam? Bo całość po prostu nie gra. Na papierze wszystko się zgadza. Nieco niepokojącego klimatu, delikatnych organicznych dźwięków, wokalne przeplatanki, trochę elektroniki. Dbałość o detale, każdy utwór przepełniony kobiecością. Z drobnymi wyjątkami, te piosenki jednak nie chwytają za serce. I nawet w najlepszych momentach, nie ma mowy o rzeczach tak pięknych, natchnionych jak “Daniel” czy “Pearl’s Dream”. Całość jest jakby rozwodniona, nijaka, oddarta z magii, za to za często wypełniona banalnymi elektronicznymi motywami. “The Haunted Man” nie jest złą płytą, ani nawet słabą. Z tym albumem jest trochę jak z grą naszej reprezentacji w piłkę nożną. Są mocne elementy, fragmentami może się podobać, chwilami nawet bardzo. Wstydu nie ma, ale… jak ma zachwycać, jeśli nie zachwyca. Anna Szymla | emi music poland Dodano: 24/10/2012
Bat For Lashes new album "The Haunted Man" out on 10/15/2012. Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by pghmusiclover, Jul 24, 2012. Thread Status:
Is Bat a verb or noun? Or both? Natasha Kahn has said her peculiar stage name “doesn’t really mean anything, it just conjured up Halloweeny images and sounded metal and feminine.” For me, there is a sense of childhood dressing-up games, perhaps a baseball bat being swapped for fake eyelashes, touching on that twilight area where innocence and imagination awaken to sexuality, the kind of imagery reflected in Kahn’s early artwork. But on her third album, the cover suggests she has finally put away childish things: she stands naked with a man draped around her shoulders, like a huntress bringing home her prey. Kahn is a quirky, interesting singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, distinctive enough for both her 2006 debut, Fur And Gold, and 2009 follow up, Two Suns, to be nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her penchant for combining almost abstract sounds with flighty, poetic lyrics drew immediate comparison to such potent artists as Bjork, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and the goddess of them all, Kate Bush. But at 32, it is surely time for her to deliver something bolder and more coherent to justify the hype. Despite occasionally drawing blood, The Haunted Man doesn’t live up to its stripped and dangerous cover, often retreating to gambol about in the backwaters of Khan’s imagination, trilling about “scaredy rabbits” and “paper ghosts” while drum machines stutter and arrhythmic synths fizz. There is more emphasis on rhythm than on previous outings, but not in an accessible pop sense – these are broken grooves to get feet in a tangle. For every song that opens up and invites you in to experience the startling wonders of her private world, there’s another that just hangs like a gauzy veil of unusual sounds and vague lyrics, not so much impenetrable as too insubstantial to be worth the effort of investigation. The Ivor Novello nominated Khan can certainly write when she wants to. All Your Gold is a dramatic, driving gothic pop song on which Khan wrestles brilliantly with the complexities of being unable to give someone the love they deserve. Laura is an affecting, minimalist piano ballad with a gorgeous melody, written with Justin Parker (who co-wrote Lana Del Rey’s Video Games) in a deliberate attempt to create a more orthodox single. The album could do with more of this kind of shameless commercialism in an era when the best mainstream pop is every bit as weird and wonky as anything the arty left field can come up with. Never forget that Kate Bush was a pop superstar. After a promising start, Khan is beginning to sound more like Thom Yorke’s introverted little sister, turning her back on listeners to rummage about in the privacy of her own dressing-up room. Download this All Your Gold
Watch the video for Horses of the Sun from Bat for Lashes's The Haunted Man for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists.
The Haunted Man is Bat for Lashes' third studio album. It was released on 12 October 2012 through Parlophone. The album took 3 years to be finished as Natasha Khan felt she needed time after her
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