Wednesday 30 November 2011

Florence and the Machine's 'Ceremonials'



Florence Welch's second album has eventually fallen upon us, Halleljah! I literally couldn't wait for it to come out and eagerly awaited its launch. Her performance on Jools Holland was one which made me pause momentarily and wonder whether it could satisfy my Florence needs.... But then I bought the album and have become ever increasingly in love with it.

There's certainly a level of loyalty to the original Florence sound, which is very honest of her. For one, THE harp features throughout the album, the long, wabbling, sustained and dynamically increasing vocals is also still there. Sadly, there's nothing which is as anthemic as 'Raise It Up (Rabbit Heart)' or 'Dog Days'. To be honest though, I dont think that thats what ol' Welchy was going for.

The song writing which has gone into this album needs to be listened to. I think if you were to pop the album on in your car to get you from A to B then you may well get a little lost. After all, alot of the tracks can sound a little samey...However, I think it's once you have a good listen through once, establish the tracks and break the album up a bit and that is when the love and my personal attachment to the album became paramount.

The introductory track 'Only if For a Night' is one of my personal faveourites. Although slightly hard to sing along to due to the high vocals and difficult leaps, the drum beat and movement of the piano chords, alongside the pausing, minamilist bridge into the chorus keeps interest and passion within the track. The singles 'Shake It Out', 'What The Water Gave Me' and 'No Light, No Light' all contain a strong content and promising dynamics. 'What The Water Gave Me' has a brilliant bass and organ parts, alongside a good build of instrumentation into the chorus. The production is first class and sounds pretty expensive.

I think this album will stay with me for a long time (and I know I'll have to fight it's corner against my lad mates), but I don't think it could ever cling to me as strongly as the first did.


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