Five stars for Florence and the Machine's Lungs

Prev

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Next

View gallery

Rating: 5/5

Florence Welch has got a phenomenal lung capacity. But unlike peers Pixie, Paloma, Adele, Duffy, Amy even, all of whom have impressive pipes but whose lovely songs sound like standards you could ­interchange, Florence’s tunes are all her own.

No one but her could sing single Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), the criminally under-performing, lushly dramatic pop monster with thumping drum machines and bolt-cutting vocal. That song alone proves Florence won her Brit fair and square.

If you think women should be seen and not heard, this 22-year-old Londoner is your worst nightmare. She is like nothing your ears have encountered, at least not in a long time. If she’s plundering ­anyone, it’s ladies from the late 60s and 70s, those fearless wild women of North American rock: Janis Joplin, Laura Nyro, Grace Slick and Buffy Sainte-Marie (who, in a bizarre twist of fate, is releasing her first ­album in 15 years this week).

Drumming Song is more of the same powerful pop, a dense overwhelming production of percussion, swelling into a catchy tsunami. Howl is her in warrior mode, with the passion of a young Sinead O’Connor. I’m envisaging mud in her hair, bare-breasted like ­Boudicea riding into battle, announcing her presence with the titular howl.

Between Two Lungs and I’m Not Calling You a Liar it is more meandering and radio-friendly – harps and handclaps, bongos and bells.

Wait! I’ve not mentioned the best song yet: Cosmic Love is an eye-­watering beauty which starts with Disney twinkles and expands to HD widescreen epic with thunderous drums straight from Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love.

The most uplifting song on the album, Cosmic Love takes the well-worn cliche of being blinded by love and twists it into something uniquely moving: “A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes/ I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it’s left me blind. The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out/ You left me in the dark. No dawn, no day, I’m ­always in this twilight/ In the shadow of your heart.”

Apologies for what must read like hyperbole but I’m not alone. Everyone who has “stolen” the album off my desk is besotted by it. Lungs is a bold bitchslap to the competition­ – awesome and then some.