New Track: Bat For Lashes Experiments With Optimism In 'Kids In The Dark'
Tristan Young @talltristan
Before the onslaught of summer bangers is upon us (looking at you Goldlink) Bat For Lashes is backing with one more dose of spectral and moody shoe gaze synth pop. Natasha Khan’s nocturnal bedroom missives started out as downright spooky and moribund back in her Two Suns days. As she has continued the project it has evolved into more emotionally exploratory, and conceptually explicit forms. Her music can be debilitating in its rawness such as during the mollifying high points of The Haunted Man, or depicting a more cinematic strand of horror and tragedy as in The Bride. Her new track ‘Kids in the Dark’ seems to have ejected some of the traumatic baggage in favor of something a touch more hopeful. While dripping synth and intimate base rumblings still have a faux goth mystique to them, Khan’s vocals seem less maligned. She sings with a more pronounced sense of freedom, less constrained by the anxiety and pressure of her previous thematic intents. She sounds relieved, which is not something one would often associate with Khan, especially on her last album. Even parts of the synth wave mark conclusive beats with exclamatory joy. While this new sentiment may seem like a reboot of sorts, Khan frames it instead as a progression of her established incarnation, albeit an unexpected one. Alluding to her past and well documented heartbreaks she sings, “it’s been such a dark night, boy I know you’ve been grieving”. “Everything is on fire, let’s take it down”, she intones before her buoyant cadence states, “we’re just kids in the dark”. This is a far cry from the devastated bride she last was, left at the altar by a man horrifically slain on the way to join her. Her previous album focused on the black hole that experience left in her, concluding with a hint that she would maybe learn to love again. ‘Kids in the Dark’ is a cautious but encouraging first step.