Bat for Lashes
Lost Girls
Release Date: Sep 6, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: AWAL
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Album Review: Lost Girls by Bat for Lashes
Great, Based on 10 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
By the time Bat for Lashes released Lost Girls, the '80s synth pop revival of the 2000s and 2010s had lasted several years longer than the style's original run. More than 30 years later, the magic, hope, and romance of that decade's pop culture and music -- especially when contrasted with its threatening political climate -- still resonated. The imaginary '80s of the 21st century heightened the era's theatricality into a dream world capable of expressing the grandest feelings and desires of artists like M83 and, on her fifth album, Natasha Khan.
Based on rating 4/5
Inspired by 1980s cinema, Natasha Khan's fifth album is a widescreen reimagining of her trademark danceable sound, though the underlying menace remains After moving from the mild and leafy north London to the sunnier climbs of Los Angeles, multi-Mercury nominee Natasha Khan - aka Bat For Lashes - found herself using the landscape of her new home as a canvas to paint a whole new world, albeit one based on something comfortingly familiar. Inspired by LA's peachy sunsets, wide open spaces and the locals' sense of positivity and adventure, Khan was taken back to the endless possibilities of classic '80s kids films. We're talking The Lost Boys, Never Ending Story, The Goonies, The Flight Of The Navigator, Labyrinth and The Karate Kid.
Based on rating 8/10
Natasha Khan has always been one for reinvention. Using rich storytelling to communicate profound truths, her work has carved a unique trajectory through the world of left-field pop, and Lost Girls, her first album since 2016, is perhaps the most direct Bat for Lashes record yet. Woven together by defined bass lines, propulsive beats and a wash of synths, the album marries Khan's love of iconic '80s tracks like the Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain" with a love story that finds release in choosing to be vulnerable. Khan's ….
Based on rating 4
There’s a great deal of nostalgia for the ’80s kicking around right now. Indeed, the rebellious and carefree nature of the era is a welcome direct antithesis to the current troubled waters engulfing us. Lost Girls, the fifth album from Bat For Lashes, invites us to embark on a journey back to such incredible times where hair was enormous and John Hughes films were everywhere.
Based on rating 3.8/5
Indulging in the '80s music... The beauty of Natasha Khan's albums lies in the experience they offer as a whole. We always receive an immersive journey where the music and lyrics completely wrap themselves around you. Her gorgeous voice leads the way, whereas the cinematic songs provide all necessary details for you to vividly relive her stories. This latest affair, Lost Girls feels like a trip back in time, fusing several '80s pop sounds, embellished with current synthwave (retro and dreamwave) aesthetics.
Based on rating 7.2/10
Natasha Khan writes songs that sound not quite of this earth. She spun strange fairy tales on 2006's Fur and Gold, summoned celestial grandeur on 2009's Two Suns, invoked intimate magic on 2012's The Haunted Man. And 2016's The Bride had the candlelit chill of an old M.R. James story, with Khan singing from the perspective of a woman whose fiancé, killed in a car crash on the way to their wedding, would not rest quietly.
Based on rating 3.5/5
It says a lot about Natasha Khan, and the astonishingly high standard that she set for herself across her first three albums, that her fourth could be a highly-stylised concept album charting the fate of a would-be bride struck by tragedy at the altar and still, somehow, be seen as a creative regression. She was unlucky to see her beguiling, baroque debut 'Fur and Gold' overlooked for the Mercury Prize in 2007 and robbed absolutely blind two years later when her masterpiece, the dense and emotionally complex 'Two Suns', was passed over also. 2012's 'The Haunted Man', meanwhile, was an exercise in intelligence on both the compositional and atmospheric fronts, a boldly collaborative effort that summoned enigma from minimalism.
Opinion: Excellent
'W hy does it hurt so good?" feels like an eternal pop question. Followed by the carefree refrain, "You don't treat me like you sho-ooo-oould", it could easily be a haunting chorus sung by a 1960s girl group, or a gothic 80s power ballad, or a 00s R&B cut: all sugar and sweetness, delivered from a place of real pain. Actually, it's the hook of So Good, one of the standout synth-powered pop songs on Bat for Lashes' fifth studio album.
Opinion: Very Good
Bat For Lashes (born Natasha Khan) creates music which is individual, slightly surreal and highly imaginative. Bat For Lashes is known for being expressive. Her music accompanies movie scenes playing inside her mind. Her musicianship has earned her two Ivor Novello awards, and three Mercury Prize nominations.
Opinion: Fairly Good
D evelopment hell has many circles, into one of which fell the sequel to Joel Schumacher's classic 1987 teen-goth film The Lost Boys; despite several attempts by Schumacher and others, The Lost Girls never appeared. Enter Natasha Khan, the UK's premier purveyor of musical spookery, who thought she'd have a bash at making her own version of the film. Somewhere along the line, the songs she'd been working on as the film's soundtrack took over, and Lost Girls became an album instead.
'Lost Girls'
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