As Natasha Khan has made known in interviews, press releases and live shows, her fourth album as Bat for Lashes has a concept. It revolves around a woman whose fiancé dies on his way to their wedding, and her subsequent experiences of life after love. In song-title terms, it’s a journey that takes us from the hopeful I Do, to Honeymooning Alone and, later, I Will Love Again. Whether it’s a great idea to impose such an involved narrative on an album of torch songs seems doubtful, especially since their appeal is always fortified by elastic meaning. What’s less questionable is the quality of the music itself. Barring Sunday Love – an electropop episode that movingly echoes the melody of Khan’s best-known track, Daniel – this is a collection of darkly intriguing dirges, a battle for dominance between Khan’s intimate, exquisitely beautiful vocal and subtly unnerving sonic dissonance at its heart.
