Review Summary: You took your toll on me...
Heartbreak has long been one of the foundations of popular music. Endless songwriters have found solace in weaving their personal heartache into their music but it has often been pop’s leading ladies who have suffered the worst; from Dolly Parton’s pleading "Jolene" to the five-stages-of-grief cycle that occurs on Adele’s 21, the women with the biggest voices have seemingly experienced the harshest failures. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Florence and the Machine’s latest album, finds front woman Florence Welch joining that list of brokenhearted women relying on their music for strength.
What separates How Beautiful from the myriad of thematically similar albums though, is how often it aims for catharsis over self-pity, the crowded dancefloor over the lonely bar. The album avoids the frequently myopic nature of “break-up albums” by acknowledging that time continues and hearts mend. The self-help pep talk-cum-gospel sermon “Third Eye” is the most obvious attempt to restore that lost confidence that inevitably follows a break-up as Welch attempts to convince herself she deserves, and will find, something better. “What Kind of Man” meanwhile feels like a spiritual companion piece to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”, the moment of retaliation from emotionally beaten women realising they deserve better. The stomping brass and classic rock guitar riff lend the track an incredible feeling of defiance and suggests Welch will have no issue surviving on her own. She longs for a fresh start on “Mother” which has a faint Hendrix aura with its nimble electric guitar and a spiritual reverence for Mother Nature. It’s a mystical prayer, with Welch wishing to be turned into a tall tree so she can shake loose her leaves, a metaphorical rebirth following her broken relationship.
Album highlight “Delilah” meanwhile blurs the lines between liberation and oppression. It is dancefloor-gospel that looks to an Old Testament character (one who betrayed her lover) as an unlikely source of inspiration. The song details that feeling of waiting for an ex-partner to inexplicably call, which is a position of complete powerlessness and may explain why Welch turns to a woman who, conversely, was in complete control of her situation for strength. Welch admits “I’m gonna be free and I’m gonna be fine… But maybe not tonight”, which is a sentiment that How Beautiful sticks to pretty religiously; the despair of the present mixed with the knowledge of a brighter future.
That present tense misery is addressed throughout the album though and it provides How Beautiful with an emotional heart. “Long & Lost” is a late night, alcohol soaked bluesy ballad that finds Welch contemplating returning to her ex-lover. The strikingly sparse guitar allows the vocals to be the sole focus of the song, which are gorgeously understated (a previously unimaginable assertion). “Caught” is another emotionally resonant performance from Welch, with her revealing that she is unable to learn from her past relationship issues, “I’m caught, I forget all that I’ve been taught” she coos, lamenting the influence her ex-lover has over her. Saint Jude, “the patron saint of lost causes” and another enormously strong female presence, has a track named after her and is also there for Welch to lean on as a means of support. The three women named on How Beautiful (Delilah, Saint Jude and Mother Nature herself) act as a sort of support group for Welch to rely on, to channel their collective powers into a form of tangible resilience. She also finds help from other sources though; the album is littered with references to alcohol and drugs, suggesting Welch isn’t handling her situation quite as healthily as it seems.
The pre-release talk of How Beautiful focused on the promise of a stripped backed Florence and the Machine, so it’s interesting that the band’s usual moments of cathedral-pop are actually the weakest on the album. The title track’s arrangement is too crowded (strings, organs and horns all jostle for space and attempt to supersede one another) for Welch’s lyrics to meaningfully impact proceedings, especially with lines like, “between a crucifix and a Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt” making Florence Welch, a distinctly unique voice, sound like a discount Lana Del Rey. “Ship to Wreck” is a straightforward jangle pop song, think Welch fronting REM, that doesn’t suit her histrionic vocal performance. Suffering equally from that sense of melodrama is “Queen of Peace”, especially as the chorus (“you’re driving me awaaaaaaaay!”) sounds closer to an obnoxious tantrum than the desperate accusation it actually is.
Despite these inevitable over-the-top moments, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful does finally offer a (somewhat) stripped back version of Florence and the Machine. There’s no chill-inducing moment to match “Shake it Off” but How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful offers listeners a more introspective look behind the vibrant outfits and flashy performances; the album should remind everyone that there’s an extremely human heart beating beneath that colossal voice, one that is strong enough to stand on its own. As if there was ever any doubt.
