This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artists Of The Year
CMU Albums Of The Year 2009: Bat For Lashes – Two Suns
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 16 December 2009
As we head towards the end of the year, we’ll be revealing, in no particular order, our ten favourite albums of 2009. Today, Bat For Lashes’ ‘Two Suns’.
Bat For Lashes’ second album was the first long player I remember getting really excited about in 2009. In fact, a quick look back through the CMU archives suggests that I started getting excited about it a week and a half into January. It was the news that it would feature Scott Walker and members of Yeasayer that really peaked my interest, although I was (and still am) a big fan of Natasha Khan’s very good, if slightly patchy, debut, ‘Fur And Gold’.
So, when a copy of the album found its way to my desk in March, I listened to it for the first time with the sort of expectation that can only end in disappointment. Except on this occasion it didn’t. From the moment she hits that first high note on opening track ‘Glass’, I was sold. And, thankfully, the standard remains high throughout the eleven tracks, not just that one note.
Khan is clearly someone who takes songwriting very seriously, and recognises the place of the recording studio in that process. Each song has a story, which sees her adopting various characters, but with as much importance placed on the music as the lyrics. ‘Daniel’ is the most obvious example, a recognisable story of teenage love over a youthful-sounding, 80s-influenced backing. But something like ‘Siren Song’ perhaps illustrates better what I’m talking about, with almost monotonous piano and violin, using volume rather than melody to drive the emotion in the words.
Everything on the album sounds like it was tightly planned, with nothing left to chance, but without forgetting to leave room for warmth and passion. It’s this perfectionist attitude which makes ‘Two Suns’, well, perfect.
Buy from iTunes
Buy from Amazon
Listen on Spotify
