How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
On Florence + The Machine’s third album, their focus is clear from the cover art. While the group\'s first two albums featured frontwoman Florence Welch posed in a theatrical side profile with her eyes closed, this one finds her eyes open and staring straight into the camera. This sense of immediacy and alertness infuses the band’s most mature, cohesive album yet, starting with propulsive opener, “Ship to Wreck.” Lush arrangements combine a rock band, strings, and brass with Welch’s volcanic, soaring voice, serving high drama on tracks like the driving “What Kind of Man” and the transcendent “Mother.”
The songs on Florence and the Machine's third LP aren't just about heartbreak, they're songs about total and utter eclipses of the heart. What really binds How Big together, though, is Welch's exceptional sense for melody. No matter how tormented these songs get, they let her show off with grand, arching vocal lines.
It’s fair to say the run-up to the release of Florence + The Machine’s third album hasn’t gone to plan.
Florence Welch's third album is blustery, but succeeds when the tunes match her ambition
"Maybe I've always been more comfortable in chaos," sings Florence Welch on her third LP. That lyric could be the British singer's mission statement, summarizing the grand ambitions of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.
Check out our album review of Artist's How Big How Blue How Beautiful on Rolling Stone.com.
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.
The first two albums by Florence and the Machine were hardly feeble constructs, with Florence Welch's vocals front and center and demanding the attention of anyone within earshot.
Once the most British of eccentrics, Florence Welch turns her sights on America with this well-balanced third album
Don’t believe the talk about Florence Welch’s new album being a stripped-down affair – this is often still as melodramatic as pop gets, and sometimes to a fault. But the songs are strong enough to carry that weight
With the band’s third album, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, they finally perfect their sound, largely by reinventing it.
Florence and the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful review: Now with more brass.
Like Kate Bush on Hounds of Love, Florence Welch channels the heartbeat of the hunted victim on her latest record
Pop juggernaut retains her flair for the dramatic on third album. CD new music review by Lisa-Marie Ferla