I've been trying to make up my mind about Bat for Lashes for a while now. I feel like I should like her. After all, she is a quirky female artist with a great voice and some badass leotard and sequined cape combos, and yet, her performance last night at The Roundhouse has confirmed that I don't. There is something about her non-threatening brand of wholesome sexuality that I find incredibly irritating. I prefer my female artists with a little more fire in their bellies. I like dangerous women like Karen O, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith. Although there is no denying that Bat for Lashes (aka Natasha Khan) is extremely talented she lacks the unknown quantity that I look for in a female solo artist.
Prancing around the stage barefoot and covered in glitter, she behaves like a sixteen year old girl on the cusp of discovering her sexuality but she is, in fact, a twenty nine year old woman. It's as if she inhabits some kind of twee fantasy world where it's acceptable to use a phrase like 'spewing comets' as a sexual metaphor.
If she achieves stellar success, which I'm sure she will, I could see her riding on stage on life size My Little Pony. Everything about her is cutesy, quirky, girl next door and the songs just melded into one big blur mediocrity.
She's been compared to artists such as Kate Bush and PJ Harvey and the influences are clear but with sentimental lyrics like 'heaven is a feeling I get in your arms' and 'I found a home in your eyes' I get the impression that she's never been haunted by the hounds of love or ever had to throw her bad fortune off the top of a tall building. Everything is just too sweet and one dimensional and as much as I'd like to join her in her glitter dipped paradise, I'm afraid I live in the real world.
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