Florence and the Machine - Lungs

Florence and the Machine is the name on everyone’s lips in the UK at the moment. Florence Welch - to use her real name - won the Critic’s Choice award at this year’s Brit Awards before she had even released an album, she is already a style icon as comfortable on the pages of fashion glossies as in the NME, and Lungs was recently nominated for the much-coveted Mercury Music Prize. The burning issue, of course, amid such hype and fanfare, is whether her debut long-player is actually any good.

Lungs is certainly ambitious in its indie/pop/soul sound, with piano, strings, harps, handclaps and massive drums, but it is Welch’s voice that is the most impressive instrument, jumping seamlessly from a sultry whisper to an awesome, lung-busting chorus and back again. Radio favourite, Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up), is the best example of her stunning vocal. Her delivery at the crescendo of this unapologetically grand pop anthem doesn’t so much ask for your attention as pick you up and fling you across the room. It’s thrilling stuff and indicative of the album’s multilayered barrage of sound.

Elsewhere, her voice floats over delicate harp on I’m Not Calling You a Liar, while Cosmic Love is a bit Bat For Lashes and Kiss With A Fist offers bouncy White Stripes blues. Wrapping up with a cover of The Source’s You’ve Got The Love, this album’s inventive juxtaposition of dark, gothic lyrics and rousing tunes blows away any burden of expectation with a flourish. Happily, Lungs is unquestionably worthy of the hype.

Review by Rob Townsend