Is it just me? All over the web people are blogging the praises of the second Bat for Lashes record, Two Suns. I rather like it too, but I feel that reviewers are going a bit overboard with their praise (e.g. Pitchfork).
It's a very pleasant record with some strong songs, and Natasha Khan has a great voice. Everything here is going in the right direction. But overall I find it rather too slight, rather too conventional for all the praise it's getting. It's good, yes. But not great.
A comparison with one of my favourite recent albums, Under Byen's 2007 LP Samme Stof Som Stof, is perhaps instructive. Here we see a band that have truly mastered their medium (through 15 years of hard work), and for whom conventions are not restrictions but toys to be played with or ignored as required. Natasha Khan is on the right track and definitely a talent to watch for the future. And that's the good news: this album might be good, but the next one can only be better.
Bat for Lashes will play at the Kulturkirche in Cologne on 18 May
View event info on last.fm
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