Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 10/20/2009
Precocious Brit
Florence Welch fired a bullet into the head of the U.K. music scene in 2008 with the single
"Kiss with a Fist," a punk-infused, perfectly juvenile summer anthem that had critics wiping the names
Lily Allen,
Amy Winehouse, and
Kate Nash from their vocabularies and replacing them with
Florence and the Machine. While the comparisons were apt at the time,
"Kiss with a Fist" turned out to be a red herring in the wake of the release of
Lungs, one of the most musically mature and emotionally mesmerizing albums of 2009. With an arsenal of weaponry that included the daring musicality of
Kate Bush, the fearless delivery of
Sinéad O'Connor, and the dark, unhinged vulnerability of
Fiona Apple, the London native crafted a debut that not only lived up to the machine-gun spray of buzz that heralded her arrival, but easily surpassed it. Like
Kate Bush,
Welch has little interest (for the most part) in traditional
pop structures, and her songs are at their best when they see something sparkle in the woods and veer off of the main trail in pursuit.
"Kiss with a Fist," as good as it is, pales in comparison to stand-out cuts like
"Dog Days Are Over," "Hurricane Drunk," "Drumming Song," "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," and
"Cosmic Love," all of which are anchored to the earth by
Welch's knockout voice (which hopefully in time will lose the occasional
Natalie Merchant affectation), and a truly impressive and intuitive trio of producers and a backing band that sounds as intimate with the material as its creator.
~James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
;)
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