Bat for Lashes – The Dream of Delphi
Mercury KX
“Motherhood I thought would take me away from my art, but it opened up this massive world,” Natasha Khan writes in a statement for The Dream of Delphi, the new Bat For Lashes album. The project is overtly about her daughter, born during pandemic lockdowns in 2020—exploring both the everyday aspects of parenting and also the “spirituality, ancestry, and folklore.”
While it’s her most personal LP, it’s also something of a throwback. There are divergences (the tender instrumental “Her First Morning”), but its core songs bring to mind earlier-career releases Fur and Gold and Two Suns, with “Home” and opener “Dream of Delphi” evoking the synth-rich, Kate Bush-indebted “Daniel.”
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The danceable title track may grab the most immediate attention, but the record conceptually reaches its apex a few tracks in—beginning with the Erik Satie-styled “At Your Feet” and “The Midwives Have Left,” largely instrumental pieces that telegraph the emotional turmoil of parenting, of birth. Those lead straight into the sonorous, single-ready “Home”: It opens meditatively, with Khan’s voice floating atop a pulsing beat, before building into a synth-drenched epic.
Some songs come across as odes of devotion, while others delve into the quintessential struggle of parenting. It’s hard. It’s joyful. It’s painful. It’s inspiring. Nothing sits below the surface, even in the absence of lyrics. That absence may be where Khan’s themes resonate best, particularly in moments like “Her First Morning” and “The Midwives Have Left,” where the titles provide the context. But the songs would have carried listeners even without Khan’s guiding hand.
Bat For Lashes skirts the cheesiness and clichés that plague many songs about parenting. While her astral inspirations and mythology-making approach to motherhood-as-spiritual-journey yield interesting results, some of the lyrics feel written for an audience of one. (“You’re a gift / You’re from me / But you’re not mine,” she whispers on “Christmas Day.”)
Conceptually, The Dream of Delphi seemingly resists the culture of the single, the Spotify playlist. Yet the emotionally rich instrumental sections often feel like interludes, bridging space between standout tracks and the moments that don’t thread this delicate needle. The Dream of Delphi paints boldly at times, but the overall picture is uneven. – GRADE: C+
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