At the risk of sounding biased, you should know before you read any further that if ever the chance presented itself to me, I would push my kids into the gutter so that Natasha Khan AKA Bat For Lashes, could step on them and keep her pretty feet clean. Her first LP Fur And Gold left me breathless on the first listen, and is still on high rotation on my iPod. Here is a girl who blends dark pop with angelic vocal beauty; who drops earthy grooves and rolling beats over delicate melodies and, over and over again, the potent magic of a harpsichord. A harpsichord.

The title, Two Suns, promised that the new material would focus on the dreamy, deep fantasy aesthetic that made Fur And Gold such a revelation. I hoped this would be manifested in the sort of pagan mystique that was hinted at in Priscilla or The Wizard.

But the album isn’t what I expected, really, and I’m pleased. The new gear is as beautiful as ever, it’s true, and it’s certainly enchanting, but it definitely isn’t just more of the same. The tone is more apocalyptic and more varied – Peace of Mind wraps guitar riffs that would be at home on a Velvet Underground album in a heavy, grinding slave song, for instance – and the recording and production is more refined overall. In fact, the big achievement of Two Suns is its maturity: from evocative lyrics to inventive phrasing to powerfully narrative musicality, Bat For Lashes has grown out of the safety of her early pop cocoon. Comparisons with Stevie Nicks are entirely justified.

The downside is that, in spite of some really moving and memorable moments, there are no really catchy tunes here. While some songs (like Pearl’s Song, Sleep Alone) are more accessible than others (with Good Love, Travelling Woman), it’s still old favourites like Tahiti that I find myself humming on the bus. I guess it’s a matter of perspective – on the one hand, the new material is sporting more diverse and developed songwriting; on the other, it’s lost some of its singalongability.

That said, the album’s flow is smooth and vibrant: where Fur And Gold seemed to slip from the more vital, beat-driven to the languid, singer-songwriter stuff with a pronounced shift in tone, Two Suns maintains its energy more fluently and so, I suspect, might find a bit more longevity. Okay, so if you dig early Goldfrapp, Portishead, or Thom Yorke, you should check this out. And hopefully for the next release we’ll see her really nail the marriage of progress and pop.