I can’t express how much Ladyhawke’s music has grown on me in the short month since I discovered her.
The song “Wild Things” was immediately one of my favourites from her latest album of the same name.
I have just seen the music video for this song and it has somehow made me love the song even more. Such a powerful song, and powerful delivery, make this one of my all time favourite songs I think.
On June the 25th, 2008 I went with some friends of mine to watch Radiohead play in Victoria Park in London. The were touring in support of their album “In Rainbows”, and in support of them was a then little-known artist called Bat for Lashes.
It is a huge regret of mine now that I didn’t pay more attention to her during her set. At the time I think she was still yet to release her first full-length album so in retrospect this seems to have been a really special show.
Since that day I have re-discovered her through her first two albums, “Fur and Gold” and “Two Suns”, and then her following album “The Haunted Man”. But it is her latest offering, the recently released “The Bride”, that I am now writing about.
The songs on this gorgeous album feel like dark hymns – dark and beautiful. They mesmerized me from the get go and I don’t think they’ll be letting go any time soon.
When singing, her voice reminds me of the late Sandy Denny; while in the spoken poem “Widow’s Peak”, she sparks memories of one of Nico’s first albums. These attributes of her’s plant her firmly in a position that is highly unique in today’s popular music scene.
Indeed this is a concept album. Taken from wikipedia:
According to The Bride’s press release, the work is a concept album that follows the story of a woman, whose fiancé dies in a car crash on the way to their wedding. The album follows her as she decides to go on the honeymoon alone and her emotions as she deals with the tragedy.[5] Khan commented “the trauma and the grief from the death of Joe, the groom, … [is] … more of a metaphor and it allows me to explore the concept of love in general, which requires a death of sorts.”
Wikipedia
But not only is it a concept album, but the concept as a whole has been taken beyond the recorded medium. During initial tour dates in promotion of the album she performed within churches and asked her audience to come dressed in formal wear. This idea of taking a musical idea beyond simply the album has always interested me, since first hearing and seeing “The Wall” by “Pink Floyd”.
The album opens with the optimistic “I do”, which is where we meet our heroine, “The bride”. “I do” conjures up imagery of a bride singing to herself with an accompanying harp – the main instrument in the song. However we do get a subtle low string in there which gives that sense of foreboding of the tragedy that is pending.
The next chapter in the tale is “Joe’s Dream”, which starts us down the dark sound of the album with a sinister 3-note guitar riff and a distant thundering marching-like drum sound. These songs are soundscapes that you can close your eyes and escape into.
“In god’s house” just keeps upping the stunning arrangements that this album seems to keep presenting. Bat for Lashes always seems to create such unique soundscapes with her music and hearing this third song on the album reassured me that she still has the touch.
In God’s house I do wait
For my love on our wedding day
Dewy eyes and lashes long for my love
But I’m feeling something’s wrongWhat’s this I see?
“In God’s House” from the album “The Bride”
My baby’s hand on the wheel
What’s this I see?
Fire
Fire
The albums fifth song, “Sunday Love”, takes a slight left turn stylistically. I mentioned earlier about the Radiohead concert I first saw her supporting – well this song’s opening reminded me of something you might hear from Radiohead in their “Amnesiac” / “Kid A” days. Although by this point I am in love with this album’s tone and mythology, this change in pace and sound was a refreshing minor detour.
The faster pacing of “Sunday Love” brings us perfectly into “Never Forgive The Angels” and “Close Encounters” and their slower paces. The latter of the two has a great display of Natasha Khan’s ability to bring an uplifting feeling out of the Bride’s mourning.
Two thirds into the album and we come to the spoken word “Widow’s Peak” as mentioned earlier. This choice of having a spoken word section was something I also loved on Lana Del Rey’s album Honeymoon too. This song has one of my favourite pieces of imagery in the album too, the last line of the following:
There’s a demon loose, a demon loose
“Widow’s Peak” from the album “The Bride”
I can’t get home, I can’t get home
For the road is a snake of mist
And the shadow of a rebel’s fist
His jacket on my back, his bones on the shore
But the secret of dreams is to dream up a door
A portrait of him, a picture of her
A keyhole in a Douglas fir
By the time we get to the closing three songs of the album, our heroine is becoming optimistic about the future with the song “I Will Love Again” and the uplifting feel of the penultimate song “In Your Bed”.
Through writing about this album it has forced me to look deeper into it; into its songs and their words. I am so glad I did choose this album to write about next. “The Bride” is a grand accomplishment and does so much in its 13 songs. At a little under an hour long, this album is the perfect story to listen to when you want to experience more from music than simply the music you hear. If you want to be taken on a story across one woman’s emotional journey from dark beginnings to her destination of acceptance and optimism for the future, then this album is for you.
“The Bride” is the perfect marriage of storytelling, emotion and great song writing.
When I first saw the trailer to this film I had the same thoughts as many fans of the original film – “oh great, another classic film that somebody’s gonna kill off”. But I went to see it today based on the positive reviews I’d seen and do you know what? I actually enjoyed the film.
While I still love the original film way more than the new one, the new film did have many good points to it. One of which was a surprise role played by Jared from Silicon Valley.
One thing I couldn’t help but notice though was the annoying inclusion of cameos from the original cast throughout as well as one certain rock personality. These cameos actually took me out of this film’s experience albeit for a moment – all just to appease die-hard fans no doubt.
Also I couldn’t help but notice how the only woman without qualifications and scientific knowledge was the sassy stereotyped black woman. Maybe I’m looking to deep into it but It’s something that did stick out a bit.
But all in all I did actually enjoy the film. It was a funny Saturday night movie with a few jumps and lots of funny moments throughout.
This single, and indeed its accompanying song, “Better Yet”, is one of the nicest musical surprises I’ve had recently. I’d never heard of Carla Dal Forno before stumbling upon the song “Fast Moving Cars”.
The songs on here are so wonderfully bleak, especially “Better Yet”. I don’t know what it is about the atmosphere that these songs have, or what feelings they evoke, all I know is I can not wait for her debut album.
As I’m writing this current review, of Bat For Lashes’ latest album, I’m realising that I’m gaining a deeper understanding of the songs than I would have done simply from just listening to them.
I’m finding myself focusing and even studying the music and the lyrics and feel like I’m getting so much more out of the album.
I have noticed it before with other albums I’ve reviewed recently, but it’s with this one – and specifically the song “In God’s House”, that I’ve have really noticed it.
I made my finger bleed playing along to one of my favourite songs on this album – the titular song, “Wild Things”. The song isn’t fast, and I’m not particularly great on guitar – I had simply been bitten on the index finger of my fingering hand by our hamster, Moomin. But I didn’t care, it’s a great song to play along to. I didn’t know what key it was in, so I just found a couple of notes that sounded good and pretended I was on stage with Phillipa Brown herself.
This is my first time hearing any music by Ladyhawke, and I’m already completely hooked. Listening to her sing, she sometimes reminds me of the vocal sound of Bananarama and even Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders.
The music throughout this album feels like it’s constantly driving forward with ever-increasingly infectious grooves and power. “Wild Things” is a consistantly brilliant, idiosyncratic album and even though each song is unique, the album has a strong consistency throughout which is tied together by Phillipa Brown’s stunning vocals.
The opening song, “A Love Song” pulls no punches. It immediately pulled me into its infectious electro-pop groove and built me up to its big chorus. These huge, unashamed choruses are a staple of this album’s core.
The third song is one of my favourites on the album. “Wild Things”, the titular track, builds up slowly with its ambient electro sounds. Then from out of its electro-atmosphere we can hear a voice rising, singing what will be the album’s chrous. As soon as her voice has risen into coherence we drop into a slower, more reflective sound than has been heard up until now.
Your heartache is not forever
It’s another road that we walk together
And our lives become much stronger
As the world goes on much longer
I wandered far to find the answers
What keeps me alive while taking chancesWhen you’re always almost lonely
You forget to take it slowlyThere’s a fire
“Wild Things” from the album “Wild Things” by Ladyhawke
In the heartland
We dance around it like the wild things in the night
“Chills” burrows its way into that part of the brain that makes you bob you head and tap your feet without realising. As I am writing this along to the song, I realise that I am almost full-on dancing where I sit. God help me when I’m driving home listening to this.
“Golden Girl”, although having lyrics of what I think is about unrequited love, feels like one of the album’s most upbeat-sounding songs.
There’s no way up, there’s no way down
You stole my heart but you throw it around
You give it up then you give it away
Your golden girl waits another day
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Your golden waits another dayThis is the daughter of love running wild
“Golden Girl” from the album “Wild Things” by Ladyhawke
We are the children that play on the other side
But here I am holding cards that will show you
My aching heart’s all too easy to cut through
The album’s closing song, “Dangerous”, is also up there as one of my favourites. Phillipa sings so seductively on the song’s bridge before throwing you into one of the album’s biggest, and definitely my favourite of the album’s, choruses.
This is an album that goes out with a huge bang, and I can’t help but want even more of it once it’s finished.
The front cover of the album reads “Recorded in spectacular 100% stereophonic sound”. Now I have no idea what that actually means, but I do know that this album does sound 100% spectacular.
Although my thinking of this as an electro-pop album, “Wild Things” has a much more “real band sound” than other electronic albums tend to have – especially the drums. Perhaps that’s part of the whole “stereophonic sound”.
This feels like an album that only comes along every once in a while and is definitely going to remain in my repeated playlist for a long time to come.
This is what a great album sounds like.
Over the past few years I’ve been noticing how things have more of an affect on me than they did when I was younger. Films that touch on the human condition move me more than they did; songs about a loved one have a greater affect as I imagine myself and my girlfriend in place of song characters.
Lights’ music on “Midnight Machines” has this affect on me too. An album that I probably would have dismissed a few years ago, is now one of my favourites of this year so far.
Midnight Machines opens with a slow, finger-picked guitar piece called “Up We Go” and gives a good taste as to the pace and mood of what’s to come on the album. The soft guitar and quiet kick drum that enters later serve well the almost-husky voice of Valerie Poxleitner, the real name of the artist “Lights”.
All of the songs on the album are routed in soft acoustic guitar, minimal percussive arrangement and a voice that remains consistently heart-warming throughout. Occasionally, new instrument sounds will weave into the compositions in a way that helps keep you hooked on her words. The album is built on a foundation of strong lyrics.
“Same Sea”, the second song on “Midnight Machines”, opens with the familiar soft finger-picking but now backed with low piano chords and later a low-played string instrument – cello perhaps. No matter what instrumental arrangement is backing her up, the harmonies produced along with Valerie’s voice are always very moving and very personal.
For me the fourth song “Meteorites” is the best example to showcase her abilities as a vocalist and how beautiful her voice sounds with these awesome harmonies. That’s not to say that other songs on the album are weaker – far from it – this is just the one that particularly struck out to me.
My favourite songs on “Midnight Machines” are the ones where her lyrics are the most personal. In “Don’t Go Home Without Me” she sings a beautiful, reflective song where she perfectly puts herself into the shoes of her future self, reflecting back on a life well-spent with her partner and how she’ll be with them till the very end, and how she is grateful for them having stayed with her.
This is the song I will sing to you when you’re old and tired
Don’t Go Home Without Me from Midnight Machines
I will sing it to remind you that I’m old beside you
And if you’re tired of hearing my voice
I’m gonna sing it to you anyway
‘Cause I know that if we made it this far
Those differences I would put away
When the next song begins it really shows off the great pacing on both the songs and the album as a whole. “Running With The Boys” is possibly my favourite song on the album, and is the one that stands out the most to me for being the more upbeat and faster-paced of the album’s songs.
Throughout the album, she tends to keep her voice at a calm, soothing level. Occasionally when she does raise her vocals up at particularly emotional points, it’s done to great effect.
When I think of this album, I think of it as a warm blanket that I like to wrap myself up in at least once a week. Next time you want an album you can relax to – and enter a calm, reflective mood to – check out “Midnight Machines” by Lights.
Birmingham 10k run finished in just under an hour. Look who I finished with!
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