Florence + the Machine | ||
| Allmusic Biography : South Londons Florence + the Machine blend Baroque pop, pastoral folk, and artful alternative rock to create a rousing sound which they debuted on 2009s Lungs. Led by namesakes Florence Welch and Isabella "Machine" Summers, the group broke into the mainstream upon the strength of their platinum singles "Dog Days Are Over," "Youve Got the Love," and "Shake It Out," which were elevated by Welchs powerhouse vocals. As their first three releases topped U.K. charts, they made a steady climb in the U.S., securing their first number one in 2015 with How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, which became a worldwide smash. Formed in 2007 by vocalist Welch and keyboardist Summers, Florence + the Machine released their debut single, "Kiss with a Fist," on the Moshi Moshi label in June 2008. Once a full band was recruited, they signed with Island Records in November. Their critically acclaimed debut album, Lungs, followed in July 2009 and quickly became one of the years most popular releases in the U.K., where Florence charted four Top 40 singles in less than 12 months. The songs gathered steam in other parts of the world, too, particularly in America, where the anthemic "Dog Days Are Over" peaked at number 21 and went platinum. Lungs was reissued the following year in a two-disc package entitled Between Two Lungs, adding a bonus 12-track disc that featured live versions, remixes by the Horrors and Yeasayer, and Twilight soundtrack inclusion "Heavy in Your Arms." In 2010, Florence + the Machine returned to the studio with producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Adele) to begin work on their second full-length outing. The resulting Ceremonials, which successfully expanded on the groups already huge sound, arrived on Halloween in 2011. In addition to the lead single "Shake It Out," the chart-topping set also included "No Light, No Light" and the Australian multi-platinum Top Three hit "Never Let Me Go." The following year saw the release of CD and DVD versions of MTV Unplugged, an 11-track set filmed before a small studio audience that featured fan favorites along with a pair of covers, including "Try a Little Tenderness" and the Johnny Cash/June Carter classic "Jackson," the latter of which featured guest vocals by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. That same year, Welch announced an upcoming period of inactivity, during which time the band crafted its next record and Welch scored a chart-topping dance hit, "Sweet Nothing," with Scottish producer Calvin Harris. Her third studio long-player, the Markus Dravs-produced How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, arrived in May 2015. Nominated for five Grammy Awards, it was the bands third consecutive number one U.K. album, topping charts in Australia, the U.S., and across Europe. A yearlong international tour and short film The Odyssey extended How Bigs promotional cycle into 2016. Their fourth effort, High as Hope, followed in 2018. Featuring production by Emile Haynie, Brett Shaw, Thomas Bartlett, and Tobias Jesso, Jr., High as Hope included the singles "Sky Full of Song," "Big God," and "Hunger." Upon release, it entered the Top Three across the globe. While on the road promoting the effort, Florence issued the singles "Moderation" and "Jenny of Oldstones." The latter track appeared on the final season of television series Game of Thrones and became a modest chart hit. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 12 Title: A Lot of Love. A Lot of Blood. Released: 2009-04-28 Tracks: 5 Duration: 18:10 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Dog Days Are Over (04:10) 2 Kiss With a Fist (02:14) 3 You’ve Got the Love (02:48) 4 Hospital Beds (02:15) 5 Dog Days Are Over (An Optimo (Espacio) mix) (06:43) |
 | Album: 2 of 12 Title: Lungs Released: 2009-06-13 Tracks: 13 Duration: 46:13 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Dog Days Are Over (04:12) 2 Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) (03:52) 3 I’m Not Calling You a Liar (03:05) 4 Howl (03:34) 5 Kiss With a Fist (02:04) 6 Girl With One Eye (03:38) 7 Drumming Song (03:43) 8 Between Two Lungs (04:09) 9 Cosmic Love (04:15) 10 My Boy Builds Coffins (02:56) 11 Hurricane Drunk (03:13) 12 Blinding (04:40) 13 You’ve Got the Love (02:48) |
| Lungs : Allmusic album Review : Precocious Brit Florence Welch fired a bullet into the head of the U.K. music scene in 2008 with the single "Kiss with a Fist," a punk-infused, perfectly juvenile summer anthem that had critics wiping the names Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, and Kate Nash from their vocabularies and replacing them with Florence + the Machine. While the comparisons were apt at the time, "Kiss with a Fist" turned out to be a red herring in the wake of the release of Lungs, one of the most musically mature and emotionally mesmerizing albums of 2009. With an arsenal of weaponry that included the daring musicality of Kate Bush, the fearless delivery of Sinéad OConnor, and the dark, unhinged vulnerability of Fiona Apple, the London native crafted a debut that not only lived up to the machine-gun spray of buzz that heralded her arrival, but easily surpassed it. Like Kate Bush, Welch has little interest (for the most part) in traditional pop structures, and her songs are at their best when they see something sparkle in the woods and veer off of the main trail in pursuit. "Kiss with a Fist," as good as it is, pales in comparison to standout cuts like "Dog Days Are Over," "Hurricane Drunk," "Drumming Song," "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," and "Cosmic Love," all of which are anchored to the earth by Welchs knockout voice, a truly impressive and intuitive trio of producers, and a backing band that sounds as intimate with the material as its creator. [Lungs was also released in a Deluxe Edition that included Lungs: The B-Sides, a bonus disc featuring studio tracks like “Swimming,” “Falling,” and “Heavy in Your Arms,” the latter of which appeared on the soundtrack for Twilight Saga: Eclipse, as well as live cuts (“Youve Got the Dirtee Love"), demos (“Ghosts”), and remixes (the "Yeasayer Remix" of “Dog Days Are Over").] | ||
 | Album: 3 of 12 Title: iTunes Festival: London 2010 Released: 2010-07-21 Tracks: 6 Duration: 26:03 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Ghosts (03:36) 2 Drumming Song (04:34) 3 Girl With One Eye (03:37) 4 Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) [Live] (05:01) 5 Cosmic Love (05:01) 6 Between Two Lungs (04:14) |
 | Album: 4 of 12 Title: iTunes Live from SoHo Released: 2010-11-16 Tracks: 6 Duration: 25:56 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Cosmic Love (05:20) 2 Drumming Song (04:32) 3 Girl With One Eye (03:36) 4 Between Two Lungs (04:09) 5 Hurricane Drunk (04:10) 6 Dog Days Are Over (04:09) |
 | Album: 5 of 12 Title: Lungs: The B-Sides Released: 2011-02-27 Tracks: 11 Duration: 37:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Swimming (03:21) 2 Heavy in Your Arms (04:45) 3 Ghosts (demo) (02:58) 4 You’ve Got the Dirtee Love (03:41) 5 Dog Days Are Over (Yeasayer remix) (04:16) 6 Falling (03:33) 7 Are You Hurting the One You Love? (02:57) 8 Addicted to Love (03:19) 9 Bird Song (02:55) 10 Hospital Beds (02:15) 11 Hardest of Hearts (03:26) |
 | Album: 6 of 12 Title: Live at the Wiltern Released: 2011-06-28 Tracks: 15 Duration: 1:21:37 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Howl (04:51) 2 Drumming Song (05:38) 3 My Boy Builds Coffins (04:04) 4 Cosmic Love (04:39) 5 Blinding (10:11) 6 Ghosts (04:14) 7 Hurricane Drunk (03:55) 8 Between Two Lungs (05:02) 9 Youve Got to Love (05:26) 10 Strangeness (06:20) 11 Rabbit Heart (06:49) 12 Heavy Intro (01:52) 13 Heavy In Your Arms (03:52) 14 Kiss With a Fist (06:35) 15 Dog Days Are Over (08:09) |
 | Album: 7 of 12 Title: Ceremonials Released: 2011-10-28 Tracks: 12 Duration: 56:03 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Only If for a Night (04:58) 2 Shake It Out (04:38) 3 What the Water Gave Me (05:33) 4 Never Let Me Go (04:30) 5 Breaking Down (03:49) 6 Lover to Lover (04:02) 7 No Light, No Light (04:34) 8 Seven Devils (05:03) 9 Heartlines (05:01) 10 Spectrum (05:11) 11 All This and Heaven Too (04:05) 12 Leave My Body (04:34) |
| Ceremonials : Allmusic album Review : There’s a point just past the halfway mark on “Shake It Out,” the rousing first single from Florence + the Machines second studio release, when the swelling guitars, organs, and strings, staccato percussion, and Florence Welchs air-raid siren of a voice lock up in a herculean battle over which one is going to launch itself into the stratosphere first. It’s a contest that plays out at least once on each of Ceremonials immaculately produced 12 tracks. Such carefully calculated moments of rhapsody would dissolve into redundant treacle in less capable hands, but Welch does emotional bombast better than any of her contemporaries, and when she wails into the black abyss above, the listener can’t help but return the call. Bigger and bolder than 2009’s excellent Lungs, Ceremonials rolls in like fog over the Thames, doling out a heavy-handed mix of Brit-pop-infused neo-soul anthems and lush, movie trailer-ready ballads that fuse the bluesy, electro-despair of Adele with the ornate, gothic melodrama of Kate Bush and Floodland-era Sisters of Mercy. Producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Friendly Fires) knows that the fiercest weapon in his arsenal is Florence herself, and he stacks her vocals accordingly, creating a fevered, pagan gospel choir on “What the Water Gave Me” and “Leave My Body,” a ghostly, Phil Spector-ish chorale on the surprisingly Beatlesque “Breaking Down,” and a defiant, uplifting horde of merry pranksters on the spirited “Heartlines,” resulting in that rare sophomore outing that not only manages to avoid the slump, but bests its predecessor in the process. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 12 Title: MTV Unplugged Released: 2012-04-05 Tracks: 14 Duration: 1:01:39 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Only If for a Night (05:07) 2 Drumming Song (04:43) 3 Cosmic Love (05:09) 4 Breaking Down (03:19) 5 Never Let Me Go (04:34) 6 Try a Little Tenderness (03:03) 7 No Light, No Light (04:12) 8 Jackson (03:28) 9 What the Water Gave Me (04:55) 10 Dog Days Are Over (04:35) 11 Shake It Out (04:40) 12 Landscape (demo) (04:03) 13 Heartlines (acoustic) (05:33) 14 Shake It Out (acoustic) (04:12) |
| MTV Unplugged : Allmusic album Review : 2011s Ceremonials, which found Florence + the Machine expanding on their already expansive sound, helped to further propel the ghostly Brit into the spotlight, and on MTV Unplugged, shes come full circle, allowing fans a peek into the bombast while providing the aging, acoustic show with a little defibrillation. Its all well and good, with a solid set list that includes favorites from both records along with a pair of oddball covers, but Florence Welchs stadium-sized persona fights for air within the gothic confines of New York Citys historic Angel Orensanz synagogue. You can really feel her holding back on reliable show stoppers like "Dog Days are Over," "Cosmic Love," and "Shake It Out," which is kind of the point for an unplugged session, but Welchs greatest strength is her ability to go from heartbreak to goose bumps without a bead of perspiration, and this well-played, technically sound set suffers a bit for its absence. That said, midtempo tracks like "Only If for a Night," "No Light, No Light," and "What the Water Gave Me," the latter of which finds Welch in full control of the room by the songs second half, are soulful, spooky, and bold, allowing room for both Welch and her machine to strut their stuff without sounding like a murder of caged crows. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 12 Title: How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Released: 2015-05-29 Tracks: 16 Duration: 1:09:50 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Ship to Wreck (03:54) 2 What Kind of Man (03:36) 3 How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (05:35) 4 Queen of Peace (05:07) 5 Various Storms & Saints (04:09) 6 Delilah (04:53) 7 Long & Lost (03:15) 8 Caught (04:24) 9 Third Eye (04:20) 10 St. Jude (03:45) 11 Mother (05:50) 12 Hiding (03:53) 13 Make Up Your Mind (04:01) 14 Which Witch (demo) (04:19) 15 Third Eye (demo) (04:16) 16 How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (demo) (04:33) |
| How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful : Allmusic album Review : The much-anticipated third studio long-player from Florence Welch and her mechanically inclined companions, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful arrives after a period of recalibration for the spirited English songtress. Arriving three-and-a-half years after 2011s well-received Ceremonials, the 11-track set, the first Florence + the Machine album to be produced by Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Coldplay), eschews some of the bombast and water- and death-fixated metaphors of Lungs and Ceremonials in favor of a more restrained sonic scope and an honest reckoning with the dark follies of your late twenties. This change is most notable on the workmanlike opener "Ship to Wreck," a shimmering, open road-ready folk-rock rumination on the ambiguity/inevitability of post-fame self-destruction that, unlike prior first cuts like "Dog Days Are Over" and "Only If for a Night," feels firmly rooted in the now. Whether it be simple maturity or Dravs calculated production style, theres no denying that an effort has been made to dial back a bit on some of the pageantry of Welchs earlier works, and for the most part, her penchant for pairing mystic Bronte-esque pondering with similarly windswept pagan/gothic gospel rock is left bubbling beneath the surface. This attempt to reign in Welchs more histrionic tendencies yields mixed results, with some songs finding the sweet spot between bluster and nuance and others (most of them in the albums sleepy latter half) disappearing altogether. Of the former, the bluesy (and ballsy) "What a Man," the propulsive and purposeful "Delilah," and the gorgeous title track impress the most. Instead of building to a fevered crescendo, as is the Flo-Machine way, the latter cut, a transcendent, slow-burning, chamber pop gem, dissolves into a simple and elegant, yet still goose-bump-inducing round of horns, and is breathtaking without knocking the wind out of you. Whether How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful ends up being a transitional album remains to be seen, as there is enough of each side of Welch (the pastoral and the feral) represented to tip the scale either way. That said, her Brit-pop soul treacle is still miles better than some of her contemporaries top-tier offerings, and when the album connects it moves right in and starts to redecorate, but when it falters, its akin to a chatty party guest failing to realize that everyone else has gone home. | ||
 | Album: 10 of 12 Title: Apple Music Festival: London 2015 Released: 2015-10-15 Tracks: 8 Duration: 45:58 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Ship to Wreck (live) (04:18) 2 Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) (live) (07:37) 3 Delilah (live) (05:06) 4 Mother (live) (05:58) 5 Queen of Peace (live) (05:21) 6 Dog Days Are Over (live) (06:38) 7 What Kind of Man (live) (04:39) 8 Drumming Song (live) (06:17) |
 | Album: 11 of 12 Title: Songs From Final Fantasy XV Released: 2016-08-12 Tracks: 3 Duration: 15:17 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Too Much Is Never Enough (05:48) 2 Stand by Me (04:05) 3 I Will Be (05:24) |
 | Album: 12 of 12 Title: High as Hope Released: 2018-06-09 Tracks: 10 Duration: 39:56 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 June (03:41) 2 Hunger (03:34) 3 South London Forever (04:22) 4 Big God (04:01) 5 Sky Full of Song (03:45) 6 Grace (04:48) 7 Patricia (03:37) 8 100 Years (04:58) 9 The End of Love (04:41) 10 No Choir (02:29) |
| High as Hope : Allmusic album Review : For Florence + the Machines fourth full-length, High as Hope, Florence Welch digs deep, meditating on the highs used to fill the holes in our souls, be it drugs, alcohol, reckless love, or spirituality. Over the course of this concise and cohesive journey, she discovers life is about learning to live in the space between the extremes, embracing the normalcy of that middle ground between passionate highs and empty lows. Gone is the sun-splashed grandeur of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful and the anthemic bombast of Lungs and Ceremonials. The Patti Smith ode "Patricia" and the stomping "100 Years" come the closest to past heights, but otherwise, High as Hope sticks close to the heart of a newly sober and reflective Welch. Arranged as a clean linear narrative, the album opens with "June," wherein Welch faces the loneliness of fame and her coping mechanisms. She reveals a teenage eating disorder and drug and alcohol addictions on "Hunger" and returns home to revisit where they all started on "South London Forever." On the string- and horn-drenched "Big God" -- featuring Kamasi Washington, among others -- Welch even considers a higher power to fill the void. In the moments where her former vices are not the focal point, emotions swell on the tender apology/ode to her younger sister, "Grace," and the bittersweet "The End of Love," which features Welchs purest vocal performance on High as Hope. On the closing "No Choir," she confesses "its hard to write about being happy cause the older I get/I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject." Yet, by the end of the song, she realizes that, in those "uneventful" moments of stillness and mundanity, happiness can be found in the simplicity. Straightforward and relatably human, High as Hope may not be the rousing version of Welch from previous albums, but as a document of her personal growth, its an endearing and heartfelt study of truth and self-reflection. | ||