Florence + the Machine: Ceremonials

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After setting the bar high with a hit debut, this British band has returned with a “stunning sophomore effort,” said Dan Aquilante in the New York Post. Ceremonials is “big and bombastic,” and ably capitalizes on singer Florence Welch’s “flexible, gravity-defying vocals.” With the group’s 2009 debut, Lungs, Welch drew comparisons both to her contemporary Adele and to quirky 1980s songstress Kate Bush. With Welch again effecting a “neo-operatic warble,” those comparisons will likely continue, said Bill Friskics-Warren in The Washington Post. The songs here are rock-based—heavy on “big beats” and “big choruses,” but with such added surprises as kettle drums and celestial backing vocals. Welch’s lyrics at times “lean toward vagueness and cliché,” but let the bombast “wash over you.” These performances not only “redeem their rococo excesses, they deliver their share of catharsis as well.”

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