Ceremonials

Florence + the Machine

Florence + the Machine

Bigger = better. That’s the formula that Ceremonials, Florence + the Machine’s sophomore effort, implemented. And it works beautifully. For those of you who enjoyed their terrific debut Lungs, you’re in for a real treat. If Lungs didn’t take your breath away (see what I did there?), chances are Ceremonials won’t win you over.

As the album’s second song, “Shake It Out” kicks into gear, vocalist Florence Welch exorcizes her demons and, well, shakes them out. The song is catchy and makes you want to join her in her bodily contortions that can best be described as dancing. Anyone that has seen her perform live or in any music video knows how that goes. The following track, “What the Water Gave Me,” is the album’s strongest. It’s a slow build-up of Welch’s haunting voice, a backing choir, and the rest of the band on a crash course that meets up at the roughly the 3 ½ minute mark and make perfect harmony in their collision, while at the same time each one tries to achieve dominance. It’s the kind of song that I can see being used in various movie trailers. And that’s definitely a good thing.

The rest of the album is pretty much what you’d expect from the band (Welch belting out the vocals while her backing band progressively builds up to an epic climax), which is definitely a good thing. The bad part is there isn’t much diversity between the tracks, save for the drum-heavy Afro-beat of “Spectrum.” “Leave My Body” is the perfect closer for the album with the return of the gospel choir providing backup vocals as Welch’s energy propels her to the heavens. With help from a backing choir, it takes a good band and ascends it status to a great band.

Ceremonials adheres to a formula that started with Lungs, but it’s a winning formula nonetheless and it is further perfected here. This is the rare case where bigger really is better. I can’t wait to see where this band goes from here.

Recommended Tracks: “Shake It Out”, “What the Water Gave Me”, “Leave My Body”