Album: Bat For Lashes, Two Suns (Parlophone)

There are tracks called "Two Planets" and "Moon and Moon", and Khan even invents an alter-ego, Pearl, to suggest two contrasting sides to her character. (Only two?) But does it all add up to anything more than Stevie Nicks wafting around in chiffon imagining herself the reincarnation of a Welsh witch? That opening track also has lines referring to "a thousand crystal towers, a hundred emerald cities" and "my beloved knight in crystal armour", both concepts as fragile as their imagery. It's harder still to take Khan's stories seriously when she slips into blather about "a stranger in a strange land" and "a vast and unknowable universe". But the biggest disappointment about Two Suns is the contraction of Bat For Lashes' musical universe: the arcane flavours of zither and harpsichord that gave Fur and Gold its piquancy have mostly gone, replaced by a blander patina of keyboard tones only occasionally disturbed by flourishes such as the gospel choir of "Peace of Mind" or the discreet pizzicato counterpoint to the chugging folktronic pulse of "Daniel".

Download this: 'Daniel', 'Peace of Mind'

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