Bat for Lashes, ‘All Your Gold’ – Song Review

'Laura' was an odd choice as the first single from Bat for Lashes forthcoming 'The Haunted Man' album. It's a gorgeous song, no doubt about it, but it's also very minimalist, with Natasha Khan and her outstanding voice accompanied by nothing more than a piano and some background strings flourishes. For a musician known for putting together mesmerizing accompanying instrumentation, it was a bit underwhelming.

Her second selection, 'All Your Gold,' doesn't suffer the same fate. Starting off with an upbeat rhythmic pattern, the track gradually builds with additional backing layers of hard-to-discern origins -- arpeggio string plucks; something like a fuzzy electric guitar stab; bells, or maybe glasses full of water at different levels -- that loop together with more standard instrumentation, eventually forming a smooth-flowing sonic river.

Add to that Khan's voice, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary. Perhaps that's why she went with just her voice on the first single. It's often the secret weapon in a forest of sounds, and on 'Laura,' she let it out of the bag. But 'All Your Gold' has the best of both worlds, and it's when those two worlds collide that Bat for Lashes are at their best.

Listen to 'All Your Gold'