Lotsa people are trying to tell you that the new Florence/Machine record is amazing. It’s not. Thoughts below:
Florence Welch’s voice is an undeniable weapon. It brought concertgoers goers to a halt in 2010 at Southern California’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Welch and her band, Florence & the Machine, were stationed at an outpost—a relatively small tent safely tucked away from the two outdoor mainstages. With a mid-afternoon slot, it would have been easy to walk right on by. But Welch shouted, and onlookers stopped.
Hers is a tone that is equally strong and delicate—a versatile instrument that can grind out a soul cover and minutes later force journalists to use clichéd words like “ethereal,” simply because there’s few other ways to describe a voice than can seem to dance over a harp’s fragile tones. Once television-viewing audiences got wind of this dynamo singer, they responded in kind. After an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in the fall of 2010, Welch’s 2009 debut, Lungs, suddenly took off and earned Florence & the Machine a Best New Artist nod at the Grammy Awards.
So it’s a strange, head-scratching thing that Ceremonials opens with a song in “Only If a Night” that goes all of 60 seconds before completely neutralizing Welch’s greatest strength. It starts slow and brooding enough, with a smattering of piano notes, deep bass tones, and dreamy harpsichords. Then comes the church choirs. This in itself wouldn’t be immediately offensive, as Welch is singing of doing handstands in a cemetery, after all. But with the choirs come an anchor’s thud of over-production. Strings? Yep. Giant, hip-hop-like beats? Check? A midtempo piano for Welch to go all Alicia Keys? That’s here, too. This doesn’t appear to be the result of some evil major-label overload now demanding a “hit,” as Ceremonials, like Lungs, is produced by Paul Epworth. Unlike Lungs, however, this record feels more like an exercise in production than an expression of artistry.