Another Halloween-ish well-timed release, in which Florence Welch juggles her thoughts on the addictive joys, but also horrors, of fame, experiencing traumatic emergency surgery, her passion for paganism, folk, witchcraft, and references to 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich, all in a sixth album full of musical light and shade. Welch is a compulsive maximalist – she attracts attention with an undoubted magnetic stage presence – her entire artistic life filled with drama, a full-on ululating vocal delivery and despite huge success, personal and professional turmoil (an almost complete change of management and band in 2018) she also describes herself as bookish introvert in private. Her first two LPs brought her to media saturation point, she seemed omnipresent, just like Coldplay, after which hard to remained focused or objective at that level of success, even though this continued, or at least plateaued, with some undulations her next three. But this LP, with co-production by The National’s Aaron Dessner, mixes fantasy and reality to potent effect and tones down some of the pomp. Some lyrics are fuelled by the experience of an ectopic pregnancy mid-tour, which left Welch needing emergency life-saving surgery. So, after the tub-thumping opener Everybody Scream, a real highlight of the album is a more unusual in her machinery - a quietly powerful track, One Of The Greats, with understated guitar ironically from Idles’ Mark Bowen and the description, of how: “I crawled up from under the earth, broken nails and coughing dirt, spitting out my songs so you could sing along.” It’s self-analytic, industry-baiting and self-deprecatory, with telling, caustic lines such as: “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can … Now don't get me wrong, I'm a fan / You're my second favourite front-man / And you could have me if you weren't so afraid of me / It's funny how men don't find power very sexy / So this one's for the ladies / Do I drive you crazy? / Did I get it right? / Do I win the prize? / Do you regret bringing me back to life?”.
Music By Men is another telling, lo-fi number covering relationship and professional issues (“We discussed something called compromise/ A brand new concept that I never tried”) and, like the autumnal pagan folk themes of Perfume and Milk is a contrast to the the pounding drums of You Can Have It All. Welch gives it the full paganistic metaphorially kitchen sink on the striking Witch Dance and Sympathy Magic (featuring the glass harmonica), aligning such themes with her personal issues: “So come on, come on, I can take it / Give me everything you got”. Kraken also brings together a mythological beast with that one in the clutches of fame: “Creature from the deep, do I haunt you in your sleep? / My tentacles so tender, as I caress your cheek / Did you know how big I would become/ And how much I would eat?” but also a swipe and some of her contemporaries who also rose up to success when she first did in 2008: ““All of my peers they had such potential … I kissed them goodbye and let them drown.” Whether understated or full throated, she portrays a career of ups and downs in a brutal, full-on emotional, candid, confessional album, potent, self-exploring, hugely dramatic, but as usual, hard to ignore. Out on Polydor/ Universal.
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