High as Hope.
Virgin EMI.
★★★
High as Hope, Florence Welch's fourth offering, dials things down, with diminishing returns, writes George Fenwick.
It's a startlingly raw record, Welch offering some of the most personal lyrics of her career, and the production largely playing with slow-tempo drums, pianos and horns.
But what's missing is Welch's usual knack for searing vocal hooks and stunning melodies.
Second single, Hunger, opens with a harrowing admission ("At 17, I started to starve myself"), but the track's forgettable structure lets down its own emotional work. It is a pattern that repeats.
But this is a Florence and the Machine record, so there are moments of essential beauty.
South London Forever is a skyward-facing ode to the distilled, ephemeral kind of happiness to be found in partying.
