“You up for a bit of dancing?” chirrups Bat for Lashes to a rather reluctant front row. “That means you have to dance though. You can’t just, y’know...”
Brighton’s finest otherworldly chanteuse isn’t the confrontational sort, and the feeling lingers that some of the crowd are still growing accustomed to Natasha Khan’s leap, however incremental, towards a more propulsive form of sorcerous pop. Two Suns, an album redolent with romance and fantasy that is also, crucially, augmented by a sustained commitment to rhythm that Fur and Gold merely flirted with, has been available since April—Khan’s gentle admonishment, therefore, shouldn’t come as a surprise. First up come Yeasayer, the Brooklynites whose kinetic influence on Two Suns is quite apparent. Defying the old maxim that says less is more, Yeasayer’s proliferation of equipment is put to good use; flush as ever with oscillating organs, rich harmonies and a spirit of spontaneity, appetites are suitably whetted for forthcoming album Odd Blood.
Bat for Lashes revels in the theatrical license that her Pearl persona, first introduced in Two Suns, allows her. Quite apart from Khan’s fondness for props, her stage presence is resolutely expressive. She lurches into her microphone to nail her high notes on opener ‘Glass’. On the apocalyptic spaghetti western strains of ‘Sleep Alone’, she sways with genuine interest. In one flicker of particular effusiveness, she even offers a soft howl on ‘The Wizard’. Two Sunsseems to have given her more room for expression in other ways too, which is no small thanks to her band; among them, former Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley.
Several songs from Fur and Gold are enriched with a vitality that isn’t always apparent on a record that, in hindsight, tends to beatify at the expense of the liveliness inherent in Khan’s quietly confident showing tonight. As it happens, the song that follows Khan’s prompt for some cutting of shapes is recent single and would-be Karate Kid ode ‘Daniel’. Although not for the fear of an ass-kicking, a bewitched audience get the hint.
4/5
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