Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine free essay sample

Elegance and a luxurious hymn exhaled through the lungs of Florence Welch for the second time. Only days old, the new debut album â€Å"Ceremonials† hit the store shelves the beginning of Novembers month. Following up the album of two years, â€Å"Lungs†, Florence + the Machine added yet another kaleidoscopic collection of songs. The lyrics, benign and malevolent, delivered with such serenity and spite give the same notion of harmonized and rebellious feelings. Falling nowhere short of â€Å"Dog Days Are Over†, new single â€Å"Shake It Out† has taken over iPods in the United States, Ireland, and the UK Florence claims â€Å"Shake it Out† was written it to be the ultimate cure for hangovers to help her shake it out of herself. And then, as she advanced into writing the song, it became more about shaking out whatever was lurking in the back of ones mind, and shaking away the mistakes. â€Å"Ceremonials† reached the #1 album spot in the UK, the bands second consecutive number-one album, and #6 spot in the United States within the first week it was released. We will write a custom essay sample on Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Just as Florence had said she wanted it to be, it is just a second, better version of â€Å"Lungs† with a darker and heavier sound. The recording of this album of sixteen songs was initially intended to take place in Los Angeles; however, Florence decided it better to record in the UK in Abbey Road Studios. Ranging her writing and singing into one appeal, Florence carries with her an art that brings listeners demanding for more of her eloquent style, and melodious music. Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine free essay sample â€Å"Ceremonials† has been one of my favorite albums for quite some time now. When it was released, I knew little about Florence Welch, the face of â€Å"the Machine.† I knew she could sing, I knew she was tall, and I knew she had fiery red hair and sort of resembled Tori Amos. I also knew I found her interesting, but I wasnt really sure what that meant. I hadnt heard her debut album, nor had I given much attention to her modest hit â€Å"Dog Days Are Over.† All of this was, I would soon discover, my loss. â€Å"Ceremonials† is a body of work that completely transcends everything everyone says or knows or pretends to know about music. It is comparable to the works of Bjork, Fiona Apple, and The Who in that way. It occupies a space far beyond reality and transports the listener with full sensory awareness. Put simply, it renders reality irrelevant. We will write a custom essay sample on Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Welchs signature wail is that of a deity calling to arms its worshippers – packed with emotion and a grandiosity not readily seen in this world. The disc is littered with layers of harp and tribal drum and nearly every song contains a full-on choir of backup, which elevates the music to spiritual status and matches with some of its intensely spiritual tracks. Florence + the Machine primarily explores, through the lens of human relationship and existence, salvation and damnation. On the Aretha-esque â€Å"Lover to Lover† she muses, â€Å"Theres no salvation for me now/No space among the clouds/And I feel Im headed down/But thats alright.† These thoughts permeate the album. â€Å"Seven Devils† uses obvious religious metaphor to condemn a former lover, while â€Å"Never Let Me Go† and â€Å"What the Water Gave Me† deal with suicide and its aftermath. The music itself is as big as anything Ive heard and must have been a beast to produce. The mammoth walls of sound that back the banshee cry of Welchs alto raise goosebumps and all but alter brain chemistry. Listening is an exorcism in and of itself. â€Å"Shake It Out,† possibly the only song ever that deals with both with existentialism and a hangover, is a triumphant exorcism of past demons and an inspirational  ­anthem that doesnt sound one bit like one. Things do get quieter. â€Å"Breaking Down† is a jarring and deeply affecting up-tempo that sports incredibly dark lyrics about self-loathing and insecurity, and the excellent â€Å"All This and Heaven Too† has vocal parts sung in almost a whisper. Welch is truly a poet. She spins enthralling narratives and creates nearly tangible images, boasting grand metaphor and brutal realism simultaneously. The record is, technically, a knockout. But its not about technicality in the slightest. â€Å"Ceremonials† is like that childhood blanket you carry around with you to sleepovers. It brings up questions of the future and makes us look at our past. It speaks to the cosmos and to the individual. Listening to â€Å"Ceremonials† has many parallels to Florences fascination with drowning; it encompasses you †¦ slowly, then all at once. It eventually becomes a part of you, destroying what came before and shaping what comes after. Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine free essay sample Fronted by singer Florence Welch, the band Florence + the Machine invites you into an entirely different world, of rites and charms and more immaterial things. The leading track â€Å"Only If For a Night† invites you into this dark, dreamy world, strange, confusing, yet clear as day. This new world easily mirrors the important things in our world, with cryptic refrains hitting glorious heights. If the sci-fi genre tends to say something about modern technology, then fantasy worlds reflect back something we want, or are missing in this one. Ceremonials is charged, emotional, fraught with strikingly simple rhymes and everlasting lyricslike the revolutionary, It’s always darkest before the dawn, in â€Å"Shake It Out†that whatever the devil is to you, it will move you to terrible, beautiful dance. The band projects an image that is mystical, ethereal, and very, very powerful, of someone at once hostage to higher powers, then spelling them away. We will write a custom essay sample on Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Welch’s performance fully characterizes a woman, stumbling through heaven and hell, and Welch’s own haunting voice, lovely, dark, and deep, is what drives the album forward. The band isn’t afraid to dip into deeper waters of pained, anguished glory in â€Å"Seven Devils,† and â€Å"Never Let Me Go† explodes with the arms of the ocean, at once rough and divine. â€Å"No Light, No Light† prowls on with desperateness, searching, exhilarating in its discoveries in the dark. Welch’s character is like a higher force, while still grounded in the mud and mire of our world. Returning to basic elemental imagery that never ceases to move us, like swelling waters, the traditional symbol for cleansing, Welch sings of beasts of burden, filling one’s pockets with stones, as if one would be carried off into the air otherwise. And there is the constant motif of talking to someone who is less than the air, like in â€Å"Only If For a Night,† where Welch confronts a strangely â€Å"practical† ghost. This person could be a lost love, or even oneself, mirrored in the confines of one’s head, like Welch’s own reflection is fractured into several sad souls on the cover. As soon as you enter the album, you’re taken to another land, another atmosphere. Ceremonials is a masterpiece of sound and concept. And this flame-haired museWelch, or the character she has createdis endlessly engrossing, in her joys and sorrows, offering the chaos of another’s sweet, chaotic mind when you can’t make sense of your own.