Okay, let’s start with the obvious talking point – that cover photo. The carrying of a naked man may suggest that recording a ‘difficult third album’ as Bat For Lashes, is a burden for Natasha Khan. The weight of expectation heavy after a successful breakthrough album, 2009’s Two Suns. It’s also a playful subversion of gender roles, carried over to the album proper when a male Greek chorus marches into the middle of the title track. A move that shouldn’t be unusual, but one that certainly stands out. Still, this isn’t The Female Eunuch. Khan’s main intention is to put up a striking, iconic cover shot in the vein of Patti Smith or PJ Harvey. And show off her new bob haircut.
Khan has struggled to rise above comparisons with her contemporaries and influences in the past, but The Haunted Man should go some way toward changing that. It continues her enchanting meeting of the divide between electro pop and art-rock, but it all hangs together a lot better than previous works. There’s a wonderfully minimalist approach to the album (something else the cover shot captures), and it’s a wonder that the booming, melodramatic “Thank God I’m alive!” backed by a maelstrom of strings in the album’s opening song, Lilies, can be contained in such streamlined, subtle confines. The lyrics are up and down, as are some of the production choices, but this is all part of the risk-taking and the majority of it pays off. Khan doesn’t like to do things by halves and here she excels when she goes to extremes, with the stripped-back, achingly beautiful lead single Laura and the glitchy, gentle Deep Sea Diver sitting comfortably alongside the dizzying pop shimmy of All Your Gold and Rest Your Head. Naked ambition indeed.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Laura
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Hounds Of Love KATE BUSH, Born To Die LANA DEL REY
In A Word: Unflappable
