The Haunted Man

The fancy dress costumes have been put away, and the haunting claustrophobia of Natasha Khan's previous albums Fur and Gold and Two Suns have been traded in for a sound that is cinematic in scope and mature in outlook.

Haunted Man opens with 'Lillies', a song that draws from the same conceptual well as Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain. Khan's ethereal voice hovers above disjointed electronic beats and warm synths that seem to swoop from the sparseness and fragility of the verse to a lush chorus of exquisitely detailed instrumentation.

'All Your Gold' and 'Horses of the Sun' are both songs whose foundation is in percussive rhythms rather than melodic patterns. All Your Gold takes its lead from Egyptian cadence, with its plucked guitar notes and clinking bottles emulating the sense of intense urgency you would find in some of PJ Harvey's bluesier numbers. Horses in the Sun is built around deep syncopated Dhol drums, electronic jitters and backing vocals delivered in an Arabic magam. There is an uneasy and restless quality to this song that harkens back, at least conceptually, to some of the stranger tracks on Fur and Gold.

'Oh Yeah' takes a leaf out of M83's playbook with its epic electronic soundscape dripping with layers of sampled choirs, trip-hop beats and gorgeous twinkling pianos. What is striking about this song is how crisp the production is: with a sound so echoic and vast, it's remarkable that the individual instruments don't get washed away in torrents of reverb.

'Laura' sounds like every angsty-girl-with-a-piano ballad that one could care to hear and seems somewhat at odds with the rest of the songs on the album. 'Winter Fields', in contrast, delivers frosty synths and atmospheric vocals to produce one of the most interesting and accomplished pieces of music on the album.

The titular 'The Haunted Man' is a song that could easily fit onto Björk's Homogenic album, with its insect-click electronic ticks building to a crecendo of rolling snare drums and thundering bass. This is an exceptional piece of music that fosters an incredible sense of intrigue and wonder in the mind of the listener. 'Marilyn' is equally stunning, and echoes the magical feeling of 'The Haunted Man'. Hammering kick drums and electronic hand-claps shouldn't be able to make such a fantastic sound - but they do, and it's wonderful. Khan's vocals in this song are particularly breathtaking, as she allows her voice to evoke raw feelings of emotion. It might not display the warbled vocal gymnastics that we have become accustomed to through shows like X-Factor, but this is soul music as it should be: real and honest.

In 'A Wall', Khan wears the influence of Kate Bush on her sleeve, seemingly drawing the song's rhythm and tone from Bush's 'The Big Sky', but with one important caveat: it does not sound derivative, but rather a subtle homage that acknowledges her musical influences and marks it as her own. Rest Your Head is another excellent piece of music with haunting synths and sparse electronic beats that would fit easily on any Timbaland record.

Album closer 'Deep Sea Dive' is a downbeat electronic offering with Khan's vocals resonating beautifully over instrumentation that would fit easily on Disasterpeace's awesome soundtrack to mind-bending cryptographic platform game FEZ, with its sweeping synths and dislocated beats.

The Haunted Man is Bat For Lashes' most fully-realised album to date. The music has matured and as a result is subtle and surprising. This is a very good album that makes huge steps in securing Natasha Khan's legacy as a unique vocalist and thought-provoking song-writer.

- Jon Cronshaw
keeporcull.co.uk

Essentially, the third Bat for Lashes album is a lot like the second, only more so. "Haunting" is a key word that describes the addictive effect of the sounds used to underline Natasha's ethereal vocals. We get a different texture in each song, for instance plucked and muted strings in the first single All your gold, resonating drums in the next track, then bowed string bass in another, or warbling synths or xylophones. These accompaniments are often ostinato, i.e. obstinately repeated for much of the song, but as they have a different kind of sound in each song, they still offer interesting diversity, and often manage to sound mysterious, pulling the listener in by making them curious.

So, well, if you've played Two Suns a hundred times (I have), you may enjoy this even more.

(Oh, and I just love the cover photo to bits. Sadly, the booklet doesn't reveal what happened next - surely she can't have carried that bloke around forever?)

At different times, this is a soaring, subtle, beautiful and powerful album. It is utterly compelling. The production is so sympathetic that to listen to it with a low volume is a completely different experience to hearing it loud.

It is an ALBUM and to sit with it from beginning to end provides a real journey for the listener.

Bat For Lashes has outgrown any comparison to artists past.

Bushims are there if you really want to look for them, but Kate pretty much did it all between 1978 and 1989. Her impeccable work is forever going to be a benchmark for a certain type of female artist... just as The Beatles have been for nearly all bands, The Rolling Stones are for a certain kind of rock band, Bob Dylan for protest singers or singer/songwriters, Black Sabbath are for metal bands, Elton John is for piano playing solo artist, and so on.

The trick is to take what inspires you and rise above it, and take it further. Bat For Lashes has done this. Glorious.