This is the first of many (hopefully) album reviews on this blog. The reviews for Young Dracula will be written soon, probably tying in with another review for TV that I'll write.
I started listening to F+TM a few weeks ago, probably not even that long. I first heard "No Light, No Light" on the BBC Christmas advert, and so I looked it up and listened to it. And I fell in love with it. I started listening to the other tracks, deliberately making sure I'd picked all tracks from the new album, which I knew had only come out recently. And quite simply, F+TM became my second favourite band (the first always being Keane).
I told my friend the other day that I only liked songs that had meaning and weren't just sung for the sake of it. A lot of Keane songs have meaning ("Black Burning Heart" being perhaps the best example) and a lot of F+TM ones do as well, which is probably why I find their songs so powerful. I'll go through the album track-by-track, giving my thoughts and saying which is the best part of the song. A lot of the F+TM songs have one key moment which grabs my attention and makes me listen, and I'll pick these out.
It feels weird reviewing "Only If For a Night" first, as it's one of the more recent I listened to before I bought the album (or before it was bought for me). Only If For a Night reminds me of Great Expectations. Partly cos I'd been reading the book around the time I first heard the song, but it's the introduction, the tune that reminds me of weddings and more importantly: Ceremonials. The lines "What's all this sighing about" are sung so beautifully and perfectly that they grab my attention and they allow a break within the song, which follows quite a formal structure.I like songs that I can make sense of, and Only If For a Night is probably one of those, though a break still allows something to change and makes you keep listening.
"Shake It Out" is one I'd heard already and I'd seen F+TM perform it on The X Factor. When I watched that performance, I wasn't a fan of F+TM, yet I knew there was something I liked about the song. The chorus is too repetitve and too typically "first released single" for me. Maybe the band should've placed their faith in a less 'ordinary' song to sell their single and album, rather than one that feels a little too... normal. The chorus lets the song down a little and means it doesn't quite fit into the tone of the album. Yet the rhythm and song are still epic enough to be part of Ceremonials.
What the Water Gave Me is another one I avoided listening to when I started listening to their music properly. Shake It Out was the other one I initially avoided in that time. However, What the Water Gave Me is an incredibly powerful tune. It drags tune and lyrics and this fits perfectly with what's sung. It's a beautiful song, if beautiful is the right word, and it seems to take 'normal single release' and the album tone and collides them together to make a song that's not perfect, but is superb.
I'll review the next three together. I hadn't listened to these three at all before I bought the album. "Never Let me Go" is typical of the album, sung beautifully, with a perfect tune and it's just absolutely brilliant, with the repetition of the chorus seeming to work much better here. "Breaking Down" and "Lover to Lover" are weird. They're fast paced, with big sounds and rhythms, and they don't fit into the small but powerful tone the album has developed."Lover to Lover" is my least favourite on the album. It's a good song - but I feel it might be more suited on a Will Young album. "Breaking Down" has an amazing tune and the lyrics, while not quite seeming to fit, work really well with the music, and there's a perfect symbiosis between the two.
"No Light, No Light" is amazing. No question. It's video's promoted a fair bit of criticism, and to be quite honest, I don't find the video racist or offensive at all. I truthfully find it quite clever, and I think using the choir and contrasting with the different locations is brilliant. It also pushes the song in a direction I never would've thought it could go. The lyrics seem a bit clumsy in places, but once you're used to the amazing tune and you've played the song blaring out of speakers, you ignore the clumsiness of the lyrics and focus on the pure awesomeness of the song.
"Seven Devils" is scary. The lyrics and the tune are gothic, it's a dark and scary song, and there's a horrible foreboding and depressing feeling that the song develops. However, all this makes the song the most powerful and effective on the album. If you're brave enough to listen to it, it's perfection.
"Heartlines" reminded me of "Earth Song" by Michael Jackson, and the sounds of animals (it sounds like they're there) and the heavy drumbeat gives the song a feel that's unique to the album. The songs within the album are different, and in some places different in huge ways, yet they all link somehow. Heartlines has a link through the huge drumbeat, which echoes through several songs on the album.
"Spectrum" is a beautiful song. It's lyrics and tune are perfect, and it's perhaps the most positive song on the album. It's the F+TM equivalent of a ballad, and it makes you look forward to the song on the album. The lyric about the colours igniting is made to sound so significant, that if you only remember one thing about the song, it will be that line. If you only remember one thing about the album however, it should probably be the gothic theme of Seven Devils.
"All This and Heaven Too" is another song with excellent lyrics and a beautiful tune. It perhaps feels more uplifiting than the others, though does it in a way which is much more suited to the gothic feeling of the album. That leaves "Leave My Body", which is again, gothic and brilliant, with the repetitions of "Pulling me down" working brilliantly.
Overall, the album is fantastic. There are a few lower points (well, mainly just Lover to Lover), but most tracks are powerful, gothic, and have rhythms and lyrics that are so powerful they will make you think. And they'll stick in your head for days as well.Excellent work, Florence + the Machine, and I'm glad there's still music out there that has purpose (not just repeated rubbish *cough* We Found Love by Rihanna *cough*)
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