Florence and the machine – Lungs
£8.98 Florence and the machine debut album Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery From Amazon.co.uk
Review
Already the year’s most hyped new artist–not only first in the BBC’s famously unreliable poll of new talent & recipient of a special Brit award devised just for her–Florence Welsh has a lot to live up to, and thankfully the artfully titled & sleeved Lungs album justifies the investment. The singles are undeniably the standouts. The impressive “Dog Days Are Over”, neurotic & fierce, and the slightly more reserved follow-up “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” lead her debut album collection, sometimes overshadowing her other material. Yet the extremes of “Kiss With A Fist”, a jokey celebration of mutual domestic violence & noisy guitars that shamelessly steals its melody from the White Stripes’ charming “We Are Gonna Be Friends”, & the showstopping, almost unashamedly stagy “Girl With One Eye” show off both her development & an already instantly recognisable voice. The gallows humour of songs like “Between Two Lungs”, the daft “My Boy Builds Coffins” and the ferocious “Hurricane Drunk” where she threatens “I’m gonna drink myself to death” backed by a spirited choir of Florences, save her from accusations of self-absorption. The concluding, & hugely loud “Blinding” is all Kate Bush tics over bruising drum patterns. So a straightforward & affectionate cover of the classic Candi Staton & Source club banger “You’ve Got The Love”, previously only available online, comes as a welcome chance to get one’s breath back. Much better than an apparent plan to position her as some kind of missing link between PJ Harvey & Avril Lavigne suggested, the Lungs album is a clever, catchy set, yet unresolved enough to sustain curiosity.–Steve Jelbert
CD Description
Florence Welch, better known alongside her band as Florence And The Machine, confidently announces her arrival with the Lungs album. With several strong singles taking up a fair portion of this debut release, it’s clear that Welch is as much a pop writer as she is a left-field artist, despite the early influence of punk & grunge on her life. Musically, these influences are tempered by an admiration for soul & contemporary indie. Welch also received the Critics’ Choice award at the Brits in 2009, usually a sign of big things to come. Includes the singles “You’ve Got The Love” and “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”.
Track List
| 1. Dog Days Are Over |
4:12 |
| 2. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) |
3:52 |
| 3. I’m Not Calling You A Liar |
3:05 |
| 4. Howl |
3:34 |
| 5. Kiss With A Fist |
2:04 |
| 6. Girl With One Eye |
3:38 |
| 7. Drumming Song |
3:43 |
| 8. Between Two Lungs |
4:09 |
| 9. Cosmic Love |
4:15 |
| 10. My Boy Builds Coffins |
2:56 |
| 11. Hurricane Drunk |
3:13 |
| 12. Blinding |
4:40 |
| 13. You’ve Got The Love |
2:48 |
Florence and the machine album…
4/5 – Very Good Album, 17 Jul 2009
By Rhodri Tudur
On the whole a very good album, the highlights are: Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) and Dog Days are Over.
Quirky little bassline theme all the way through, Florence keeps the melodies very simple and lets her voice do all the talking.
Only gripe is that Donkey Kosh did not appear on the album. She may be holding it back for an EP/future album.
Nice peculiar artist, letting us hear something a bit different for a change.
Amazing, 15 Jul 2009
By Antony Matty
This album shows off one of Britain’s most promising rising star. Florence’s unique voice shows off on each song without any concious effort, and the songs vary enough for you not to get bored. My Boy Builds Coffins is a particular favourite, and the choice of Rabbit Heart as a single is well justified. Having seen her perform many of these tracks live before purchasing the album, I was glad to find that they were just as good on record as they were on stage.
So I’m listening to the mainstream again?, 15 Jul 2009
By Leonard Selby
A number of reviewers have started out by mentioning their age and gender. Let me continue that trend: I’m male and getting on for 58. In my time, I’ve been a Beatles/Rolling Stones, Hendrix, King Crimson, Siouxsie and the Banshees and All About Eve fan – to name just a few bands – and then some time around the millennium I abandoned the “boring” mainstream (sorry, Michael Stipe and 1990s R.E.M.) and started listening mostly to dark continental metal. That too has evolved, but the point I want to make very strongly is that Florence has reconnected me with a small fragment of the mainstream. A small but very significant fragment.
It’s significant for a number of reasons. Yes, there’s a gothic thread running through the album. Let’s call it “gothic” rather than “goth” – I think that’s a more accurate view. For a bright and “big” album (apparently, and in reply to another reviewer, Florence is on record as saying that she wants to make her music “big”), many of the lyrics are, of course, quite dark. In fact, “Girl With One Eye” is dreadfully dark – despite which the album has been accepted into the “mainstream” world without question. I can think of a great many doom metal and death metal albums, but none of them are ever likely to make the same journey!
I see this album as a great, crazy achievement in itself, and as a wake-up call to some other artists. OK, so it isn’t a competition – it’s never been that – but there are plenty of successful artists out there who seem content with “less”. One thing I’ve discovered from my journeys around continental metal is that “more” is an important part of the emotional hook: I think of it in terms of colour and texture. And this album is brimming over with colour and texture.
To those who are disappointed that this Florence isn’t quite the same as the live Florence, I’d say that the drama of the live gigs surely couldn’t really work in the longer term – not if you’re planning to put the CD on repeat. The studio version of “Bird Song” on the bonus CD has a rather different character compared to the YouTube videos, but it works perfectly well for me.
Some reviewers have made comparisons with other singers, past and present. On “My Boy Builds Coffins”, I hear something of the style of the late and much-missed John Martyn. Personally, I don’t hear much Kate Bush in Florence’s approach (stay away from those squeaky high notes please, Florence!), but she herself mentions Grace Slick as one of her influences and, well, perhaps something of that shows through. The key to Grace’s way of singing, apparently, was that she was trying to emulate the sound of the electric guitar. That’s a kind of madness in itself – and madness of a very special kind is something that Florence promises to deliver much more of in the future.
Unless, that is, she gives up all this wacky stuff and turns into one of the best white soul singers ever …