The Bride - A Truly Exceptional Album

Natasha Khan, better known as Bat For Lashes has always been a beguiling, bewitching figure. Her imagination and ambition has dwarfed that of many of her contemporaries, and her previous albums including the concept work 'Two Suns' have brought critical praise. Khan returns with her fourth album 'The Bride', and in her most ambitious, moving and harrowing work yet she has produced a masterpiece.

'The Bride', complete with mesmerising picture of Khan on the cover tells the story of a woman whose fiancé dies on his way to the church on their wedding day. You will already be familiar with the lead single 'In God's House' which relates the moment when The Bride hears the devastating news.
The album takes The Bride from this terrible knowledge on a journey through anger, grief and eventually acceptance. In this momentous testament to self discovery, Khan uses a variety of musical styles from the EDM backing of 'Sunday Love' through the bluesy guitar of the ferocious 'Never Forgive The Angels' and the gentle strings in 'Close Encounters'. She keeps the instrumentation generally at a low level allowing her beautiful operatic voice to sit centre stage.

The album, always heartbreaking, becomes more and more haunting and chilling as it progresses. Take the time to listen to it quietly without distractions and you will become immersed in its melancholy majesty.

There is a sense of closure at the end of the record, and something of a tribute to the human spirit and its resilience. The Bride seems to have accepted and adjusted, but it is clear as you listen to the final track, the other wordly epic 'Clouds' that her memories of that day will never fade. 'The Bride' is a superb album - without doubt one of the best of the year. Natasha Khan has always been special. Now she is truly exceptional.

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