In High As Hope, Florence declutters from the grandiloquent church bells and tribal demons-cleansing hooks and bares her very naked soul on the table. The band’s new LP is an all-stripped-down project which features confessional writing and a more minimalist production.
Here is a track-by-track review of the band’s fourth studio album.
1. Florence opens the album with June, a timely song that sets the theme for listeners. Although rife with instrumentals like double bass, bass trombone, French horn and a muffled piano, June is rooted in an acoustic sound as listeners can tell from its subdued background production and more pronounced vocals. The song picks up from the ending of a show for the band’s last LP How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, humbly echoes the album’s release date (29th of June) and the Pride month (‘In those heavy days in June / When love became an act of defiance‘), and progresses into a telling admission and a calling for unity (‘I’m so high I can see an angel’, ‘hold on to each other‘).
The siren-sounding synthesizer from the first chorus gives way interestingly to a captivating mood, which is kept on and sharpened by the building up of the rich explosion of instrumentals and background vocals. Ending on a series of quickened drums, June is a promising introduction. Every detail of songwriting is praiseworthy.
2. Tapping into their familiar blender of indie pop and alternative British rock, Hunger is a celebration of vulnerability and of the change that the young people today are bringing about. If I were to describe the song with only one word, it would be ‘captivating’. From a stark confession on her teenage eating disorder (‘at seventeen I started to starve myself‘) to admiring the younger generation (‘you’re the best thing I’ve seen‘), Florence is triumphant as both a storyteller and a comforter. The thunderous drums that storm throughout the song sharpens the intensity of the lifting energy but compared to her past usage of drums, Hunger has a less pompous offer. As a matter of fact, the tone-down is of a pleasant one as it provides more space to breathe in between.
3. In South London Forever, Florence reminds herself of where she came from: her formative years in the South London music scene. Over a bass riff that spirals throughout the song, Florence sounds intensely uplifting as she remembers ‘the art students and the boys in bands / high on E and holding hands with someone [she] just met.’ The breeziness from the simple yet rich instrumental and the grounded weight in the lyrics are a modest blend; it’s as if Florence is telling stories to you as she runs against the wind down a South London street. Truly, ‘there can be nothing better than this.’
4. Florence arrives with a sombre spell in Big God. Inspired by someone who did not reply her text, Florence sings about her need for a higher entity to handle her emotions. It’s interesting to note the somewhat oxymoron title of the song and some seemingly ambiguous lines that are potential sexual innuendos (‘you need a big God / big enough to fill you up‘). Although Florence’s vocals are strikingly raw (especially her biting emphasis on ‘Jesus Christ‘), the song however, sounds lacking in its sonic progression. The tense vibe, which is maintained by the same regular keys, renders it a rather monotonic digestion for listeners if it were to be played multiple times.
Watch the music video for Big God here. (It was inspired by the canvas painting Witches’ Flight by Spanish painter Francisco Goya.)
5. Being the first release from the project, Sky Full of Song seems to be an underwhelming choice to introduce the new sound the band is adopting. Perhaps it’s the unfamiliarity that has rendered the track its lukewarm response for there is no hammering anthem-like choruses and jarring instrumentals that stay stuck in your head. The gravitated love towards Hunger, the second single which was written in a signature Florenc-y structure, further evinces the gap between the band’s new direction and their fans.
However, if you take a step back, Sky Full of Song actually fits in perfectly into the puzzle. The song, although slow, quiet and monotonic, is awash with an unprecedented intimacy and vulnerability from the band. The soft jingling sound in the background is an interesting addition. The highlight is the lyrics, as Florence asks her fans ‘how deeply are [they] sleeping’ and warns her them to ‘be careful’ because ‘the good ones always seem to break’. Here, we can tell that the song makes complete sense, and Florence means it.
6 & 7. Grace and Patricia are Florence’s heartfelt dedications to her sister Grace and American rock songstress Patti Smith respectively. In Grace, Florence pours out every ounce of emotion she harbours for her sister on the table. Some might mistake the song as a jazz song from the piano in the beginning but Grace is a quiet pop ballad with some of Florence’s most intimate songwriting yet (‘You were the one I treated the worst / Only because you loved me the most’).
Patricia, on the other hand, is an upbeat rock song that serves as a homage to Patti Smith, whom Florence sees as a kind of matriarch. Over stomping drums and a melodramatic orchestra, Florence professes her reverence for Smith directly and honestly as she starts off confidently, ‘Oh Patricia you’ve always been a North star‘.
8. To borrow reviewer Alexis Petridis’s words, 100 years is full of ‘every trick in the Florence book’. In the span of five minutes, Florence sings about a period in 2016 when she felt helpless in the face of multiple world events that were happening. Florence is the sole writer of the song and although this is not her first time, it still feels a little different as a listener or a fan to know that the words and the melody are the very product of thoughts by Florence.
The arrangement of the song is of classic Florence but the subdued production has somewhat dampened the words and the energy in the beginning. As a result, the lyrics which have their own noteworthy weight, sound hollow in a glance. However, starting from the bridge, packed with Florence’s powerful but not over-the-top cries and an explosion of instrumentals, 100 years takes on a relatively triumphant energy surge and sounds like what it’s supposed to be.
9. In The End of Love, Florence focuses on the building up of the atmosphere which renders the song a liberating ambience. The song follows the standard structure of a pop song and revolves around a different way to approach and deal with love. During a radio interview on Alt 92.3, Florence explained: “For me, it was about dealing with love in a different way; perhaps not love in a romantic sense, but the end of love that came from a place of lack or need”.
The lyrics in the song are rather simple and direct but Florence manages to capture and explain her visions with a few sharp metaphors such as the flood and Joshua. The same is observed with the production which resonates perfectly with the lyrics. The song has a quiet but progressively soaring orchestra before it breaks into an ear-catching decrescendo of the synthesizer, followed by only the piano and Florence’s overlapping vocals. The End of Love is a personal favourite from the album. (The metaphor of the ‘floorboards’ just gets me every single time!!!)
Fun fact: The End of Love was the original title for the band’s album but ‘High As Hope’ was chosen for the former was too ‘negative’.
10. The album wraps up interestingly (and literally) with No Choir, the simplest yet the loudest bell Florence has rung in the whole record. Featuring only Florence and the piano, the track is a fulfilling and reasonable sign-off both melodically and lyrically; Florence sings about returning to her roots and bareness, reminding listeners once again of the freedom she finds in her vulnerability that unlike her past approaches, she does not need bombastic percussion, heavenly harp and ‘grand choirs to sing’. She is alone, that ‘the loneliness never left [her] / [she] always took it with [her]’. Amid the ‘things [that] seem so unstable’, Florence relishes in the entire process.
By lowering the pompous production and heightening a cohesive sense of intimacy, Florence balances rather steadily, and gracefully on the walking rope with High As Hope. Perhaps it is the maintenance on the steadiness that has weighed her down a little, but there is really not much to complain for you don’t always have to reach for the stars and that is fitfully what being vulnerable is all about. Florence has not only knocked on the door gently and consciously this time, but the album also proves to be a solid venture.
Rating: 3.5/5
Stream the album High As Hope by Florence + the Machine here.
Written by: Yong Tze Wei
Teh Tarik & Cendol 