Florence and the Machine Lungs Review
The Dog Days Are Over on Debut CD, Punches Like A Kiss with a Fist
Born in South London, Florence Welch, backed by a revolving group of musicians on guitar and drums, better known as the Machine, released their first single “Kiss with a Fist” in late 2008.
The emanating buzz from that single landed them a number three placing on The BBC Sound of 2009 survey, ahead of Lady Gaga and La Roux even before releasing debut album Lungs.
Dog Days Are Over
Not instantly accessible as a pop album, overpowering best describes Lungs. It takes several spins before its glory sinks in, but once it does, it grabs hold tighter than a black widow’s bite.
With her booming vocals and larger than life production, from the first strums on “Dog Days Are Over” Lungs takes over a room, leaving little space for anything else. There's a lot going on inside Florence's head: drunkenness, murder and madness, tenderness and twilight, and these ideas escape in an avalanche of sound that can bury an unsuspecting listener.
“I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe,” Florence states on her official website. “It’s something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you’re either going to explode with it, or you’re just going to disappear.”
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)
Florence encompasses the weird art-rock style of Kate Bush, with a twisted open journal style to her writing while powering her songs with the fearlessness and thunder of Sinead O’Connor circa The Lion and the Cobra.
Marketed as a pop album, Lungs has nothing in common with the music playing on current radio. Devoid of melody or anything resembling a hook, though achieving top ten success in the UK with “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”, this isn’t an album of it’s time.
Filed with guitar, pounding drums, strings, and gothic imagery on tracks such as “My Boy Builds Coffins” and “Howl”, at their heart these are bluesy numbers dressed up in pop. Though her vocals overbear at times, songs like “Kiss with a Fist” allow Florence to let her guard down and imbibe her rocker chick side.
Brassy and playfully trashy, this is the type of music that conjures images of the drunken lounge singer croaking her way through jazz standards at the best dive bar on the wrong side of town – in the best possible way.
Along with her beer chugging tunes, Florence explores different sides of relationships on “You’ve Got The Love” and “The Girl with One Eye” where, after cutting out the girl’s eye, threatens the potential man stealer to keep her grubby hands out of her pie.
Encompassing the gossipy tell-all song style of Lilly Allen, the bluesy overtones of Duffy and the drunkenness of Amy Winehouse, Florence and the Machine are at the very least authentic and entertaining.
Lungs may have a hard time finding an audience in America now that the album is available domestically, but for the musically experimental, this is well worth a try. Beer, Black lace and candles not bincluded.
Florence and the Machine – Lungs is available now.
Florence and the Machine
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