BAT FOR LASHES: THE BRIDE (2016)
1) I Do; 2) Joe's Dream; 3) In
God's House; 4) Honeymooning Alone; 5) Sunday Love; 6) Never Forgive The
Angels; 7) Close Encounters; 8) Widow's Peak; 9) Land's End; 10) If I Knew; 11)
I Will Love Again; 12) In Your Bed.
Leave it to Natasha Khan, the illegitimate
offspring of a biology-defying union between Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks, to
put out a concept album about breaking down when most of her singer-songwriter
colleagues prefer those about breaking up. Other ladies get their imaginary
(or, sometimes, real) boyfriends to dump them and feed on their imaginary (or
real) pain for artistry; the fourth album of Bat For Lashes invents a story
about the boyfriend actually dying on the way to the (imaginary) wedding, and
the girlfriend still seeing herself as betrothed to his spirit.
There's a Tim Burton movie in this somewhere, I
guess, or at least a soap opera with supernatural elements, but once we've
exhausted all the jokes and fired off all the inevitable (and, might I say,
perfectly forgivable) cynical / sarcastic remarks, The Bride demands to be taken seriously — unlike, say, a 100%
cybernetic market creation like Lana Del "A Spanish Name Sound So Fuckin'
Cool" Rey, Natasha Khan had always had that Stevie Nicks ability of
combining romantic artistic clichés with a trust-drawing attitude. Here, she
has written herself a personal tragedy and cast herself as the protagonist, and
dealing on a yes-or-no basis, I must state, first and foremost, that it works, and everything else is ultimately
negligible from that perspective.
Since time seems to have gruesomely slowed down
lately, I should probably remind all of us, myself included, that it's been a
whoppin' ten years now since her
first album (more than the entire recorded career of The Beatles, right?), and
while we rarely expect now to see any significant artistic progression in that
interim, we might at least expect maturity — meaning that some of the critical
remarks about the album being too slow, too moody, too hookless when compared
with the sprightlier, boppier singles from Fur
And Gold (aye, remember the jumping rabbit-headed bicyclists in ʽWhat's A
Girl To Doʼ?), just refuse to take into account the fact that she is, like, 37
years old now; she can certainly allow a little moodiness. And yes, the hooks
take a while to sink in, but three or four listens into the record, I have to
admit it's a worthy while.
As usual, she relishes in her role of
multi-instrumentalist here, with five or six additional musicians enlisted for
support but not completely replacing her on any of the instruments — guitars,
keyboards, vibraphone, celesta, bass, drums, you name it (Ben Christophers does
handle most of the bass parts, though, and then there's like five or six
different co-producers to prevent it all from going too sloppy). Since she is
not a virtuoso on any of those instruments, clearly, it's all going to be
relatively slow and technically simple — but she has worked out a knack for
emotionally grappling combinations of sounds, and continues to stay in top
vocal form. Electronic and acoustic instruments are combined near-perfectly
and used when and where the song's mood / purpose really calls for them (and
when it calls for something grander, she does not mind going all the way and
commissioning a string orchestra, e. g. ʽClose Encountersʼ); I don't seem to
recall being irritated by any of the textures on even one of the songs — and
for all of the album's slowness, these textures are remarkably diverse, with
guitars, pianos, electronics, strings, bass, etc., dominating in succession,
so that, despite the thematic unity, each track has its own face.
And, honestly, much of the record is innocently
beautiful, as she manages to find deeply touching vocal moves and pin them on
top of those tasteful textures. Even on the brief and somewhat intentionally
formulaic ʽI Doʼ (a moment of blissfully unaware pre-wedding happiness), she
puts some cool happy-sad melismatic touches on the "I do..." bit —
and then, starting with ʽJoe's Dreamʼ, when darkness and dread begin to take
over, she becomes so engrossed in her own story that it is hard not to be
pulled in (I could swear she gives the strongest "cross my heart and hope
to die!" delivery I've ever heard). The falsetto singing on ʽSunday Loveʼ,
the album's fastest and most (formally) danceable track, ranks up there with
the best of Eighties' synth-pop; ʽNever Forgive The Angelsʼ is first-rate dark
folk with haunting vocal harmony arrangements; and ʽLand's Endʼ, to me, is
reminiscent of Tim Buckley's serenades to the sirens — when she hits that
chorus, with just a tiny hint of dissonance, we have that «uncomfortable
mystery feel» generated in an instant, where, you know, you just have to give a
bit of an unpredictable nudge to your romantic flow and divert it into a wholly
new direction.
I am not saying that there is some sort of
innovative, never-before-witnessed artistic twist here. The story, after all,
is not that complex — you get
betrothed, you get cheated by Death, you go into shock, you slowly get over it,
you finally decide to start your life anew — but then, it might be precisely
the natural flow of it all that gives The
Bride its charm. There are occasional risks that do not pay off — for
instance, I don't know why ʽI Will Love Againʼ needed that lengthy «synth hum
over two bass notes» coda; there's a difference between a record depending on ambience
and being an ambient record — but
then, how long has it been since we last heard a record that took risks and
capitalized on all of them?
Personally, I am already amazed at the fact that an album with such a concept,
recorded by a self-consciously «artsy» UK artist in 2016, does not suck — let
alone actually combining pretty vocal melodies with tasteful and diverse arrangements
— so let us not spend time and energy looking for flaws just because the
flashing neon sign «This Record Demands To Be Taken Seriously» has got us all
riled up.
Overall, while in terms of individual songs it
is hard to single out particularly obvious highlights (something that was
fairly easy on her first three records), as an album — a conceptual suite at
that — The Bride is certainly her
finest, most «mature» and «artistically adequate» statement so far, though I am
not sure how many people will be willing to identify and empathize with it. Well,
I guess if you're a girl and your fiancé happened to die in a car crash on the
way to your wedding, you'll be needing this for some much-needed psychotherapy.
Otherwise, you'll just have to imagine
yourself as a girl whose fiancé happened to die in a car crash on the way to
your wedding — which is... possible, I guess. Not that hard, really. I did
give it a try, and ended up with a solid thumbs up on both of my hands.
"And yes, the hooks take a while to sink in, but three or four listens into the record, I have to admit it's a worthy while."
ReplyDelete.
THIS is what I admire about your reviews, George -- your patience, open-mindedness, and diligence. That you listened to "The Bride" three or four times and wrote such a conscientious review of it strikes me as amazing, given that Bat For Lashes isn't exactly a high-profile artist, and that the album is, by your account, good but not great.
.
I don't care about Bat For Lashes' music one way or the other, but wow do I hold your practice as a reviewer in high regard. Thanks again for giving us all this great content for free.
Thanks, Nancy! It's not TOO much of an effort to listen to a good record 3-4 times, though...
Delete