The Review: Florence & The Machine – Lungs

This was originally going to be a piece on the triumvirate of hyped female artists currently doing the rounds on airwaves and iPods the world over, until I realised La Roux looks like a Final Fantasy villain and Little Boots is not only not very good, but also has the severe drawback of sounding like a petrol station convenience store. Florence Welch on the other hand, has a half decent album under her belt and also the larger advantage of looking like a girl I once knew quite well, so naturally I was more likely to focus on her.

Comparisons, I’m finding, are impossible to avoid in this business. I first heard Florence on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Music show as part of a judging panel of emerging new music. She was full of the petulance that festers in the sweaty conditions of constant praise, rating something or other (that wasn’t half-bad) as 2.5/10, that put me off her, not that I was ever on her. I next encountered her when she performed at this year’s Glastonbury festival, dressed in some gothic attire that lent to her the appearance of a bat or a moth or some horrifying mixture of the two. The explosion of her amber hair was matched in the exhilaration of her intentionally wavering voice, faultless and ambivalent to the expectations of the hundreds, if not thousands that were concentrating on her and her absent Machine.

My now infamous trip to Scotland was to be the final nail in the coffin as the intermittent Radio 2 signal died and resurrected a thousand times a minute, that was that, Radio 1 was the last resort, the same Radio 1 who boast as varied a playlist as Linsday Lohan does in her choice of leggings, or leggings, or…leggings. I am now then fully paid up, a card-carrying member to Florence’s fan-club (not literally.) Forgive my reticent enthusiasm but I’m not yet entirely acclimatised to the paralyzing stigma of the Radio 1 zeitgeist. But, anyway, back to comparisons…

I find it difficult to listen to Florence and not consider the fact that she is a poor man’s Kate Bush. I can’t dwell too much on the likeness because, in all honesty, I’ve never really given Bush the time that she deserves (for one reason or another.) However, the vocal eccentricities that exist within the confines of the 13 or 19 tracks (depending on your wallet and your desire for the deluxe edition) of ‘Lungs‘ are certainly comparable to those of hay-day Bush – so that’s got to count for something. Doesn’t it?

It is always nice when new things come along, note my hesitance in using the word ‘unique’, for every fifty bands that tend to sound the same as one another, there are the breakthrough few who expose the bored frustration of others by injecting their own specialty, their own magic touch, into the world. Case in point: Arctic Monkeys who don’t sound quite like any one else I’ve ever listened to, I don’t think.

And that stands as a solid pillar of a reason why Florence trumps the terrifyingly young-lookin’ La Roux and Little Boots, who, in all honesty, I can’t hear at all in my head. I can at least hum a few bars of La Roux’s ‘Bulletproof.‘ But, I suppose I should actually focus on ‘Lungs‘ and the impression that it has made on me. It strikes me as being an eclectic collection that will appease Disco-junkies (‘Howl‘) and rock-freaks (‘Kiss With a Fist‘ & ‘Girl With One Eye‘) alike. For the pioneering savants among you, there is of course ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)‘ for you to get your jollies over, which for me, is the stand-out track which appeared on the earlier, eponymous EP.

I would say that ‘Lungs‘ is the album of the year, and it is more than likely that others will and have already done so. While it is thoroughly enjoyable and a true musical adventure through genres and tastes, I don’t trust my memory enough to give it that judgement from which there can be no backing down. It has been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and stands as a true heavy-weight contender in the field that features both artists I’ve never heard of, and bands which I thoroughly despise, mentioning no-names, Kasabian.

It has been a tremendously successful year for Florence Welch and there are still five more months of it left. In our books she is a keeper and truly one to watch over the coming months and, inevitably, years.

Florence & The Machine – ‘Lungs’ – B+

I have been Horace Blackspur, and you have been brilliant.