Bat For Lashes
Two Suns
2009

genre: art-pop, dream-pop
1. Glass - 4:32
2. Sleep Alone - 4:04
3. Moon and Moon - 3:09
4. Daniel - 4:11
5. Peace Of Mind - 3:29
6. Siren Song - 4:58
7. Pearl's Dream - 4:45
8. Good Love - 4:30
9. Two Planets - 3:48
10. Traveling Woman - 3:48
11. The Big Sleep - 2:54

As I was rubbing my chin over what else to update this thread with, it occurred to me that I haven't really given a truly glowing review of an album here since I held my monocle over Time Out Of Mind. Basically, most of the time I'm just picking out albums that have been buried in the bowels of my iTunes library for a while which could be anything from craptacular to immense, but it's mainly because as the index at the front of this thread builds up, I don't want it to come across like I just dish out 5 star ratings to any album that I throw out here for you guys to have a look at. An album's gotta be some really incredible to earn a rating of 4 1/2 or 5 stars (there'll be one or two of the latter coming up in the month) in my books. I kinda want to build up a good base of middling ratings to prop up the better ones anyway, if you know what I mean.

Whatever the case, this one's gonna clear my conscience for the time being Two Suns here is definitely in my top 5 of albums from the last 5 years, which is all the more strange as my initial reaction to Ms Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes, was a resounding 'meh'. This was for her vastly inferior debut Fur and Gold in case you're wondering. I'm not sure really...it's an ok album I suppose, but it's no more than that, kinda like the Avatar of Bat For Lashes albums. There aren't really any bad songs to be heard on it anyway. They're just, y'know, kinda weak. Plus there's this whole folktronica vibe to the thing which just comes off as gimmicky, serving only the purpose of weakening the songs it tries to enhance. At least from what I remember of it anyway - frankly, it left such a tame impression I can't remember what the whole album sounds like off by heart

Needless to say, its followup in the shape of Two Suns here shakes off that sound like a bad case of fleas and ends up giving us a much more mature sound. Bearing that in mind, the level of maturity Khan had ascended to in the space of the two short years between her two albums is just incredible. You can certainly hear the nucleus of her sound in this album, although admittedly that's only really the lass' magnificent, dreamy kinda voice. Whereas listening to the first album, I felt like it was something that shone in amidst some fairly mediocre instrumental backings, there definitely is a real progression in her sound here, and it's plain as the nose on my face that it's a move in the right direction. Press play on either of the two videos below and tell me that something about that track seems out of kilter at all. Ever facet of the music just moves in unison, guiding you gently towards the kinds of emotions and images that this album succeeds in creating.

In plain English, the overall sound of the album is very dreamy, ethereal and pretty haunting one. It veers very close to being the perfect night-time album, as in one of those ones which goes so well with a long, sober night in, like when you've chosen to opt out of hitting the clubs with some mates, you don't really feel like thinking of a film to watch or a book to read and just want to lose yourself in a really solid body of work. As such, Two Suns here is not only one of my favourite albums of the decade, but it's easily my joint-favourite dream-pop album of all time too.

Why not 5 stars? I can't put my finger on it really. It's definitely very close to being a near-perfect album, but it just lacks that little bit that'd have me put it in amongst the true elite of my music collection. Maybe it will be in with a year or two more of my getting a load of it. I do love this album to bits though, and couldn't recommend it enough to anyone. Also, look out for the Big Sleep, as it's quite simply all kinds of awesome.

Japan - Ghosts