How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Florence + The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
Critic Score
Based on 39 reviews
2015 Ratings: #209 / 1021
Year End Rank: #41
User Score
2015 Rank: #34
Liked by 224 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Time Out London
It’s taken three goes but to my mind, ‘How Big’ is her first really great album.
91
Entertainment Weekly

How Big is Welch’s most accomplished album yet, primarily because she doesn’t rely solely on operatics to make herself heard.

90
XS Noize
Florence and the Machine’s music could be best described as dark, robust and drama filled. Welch is the latest manifestation in a great line of English Pop eccentrics.
90
The Young Folks
Her voice is big, the lyrics are blue (as in filled with heart-wrenching pain and sadness) and all together the album is beautiful.
90
No Ripcord

The greater the risk, the greater the reward. And I can think of no better reward than this album.

85
The Line of Best Fit

How Big How Blue How Beautiful is a cathartic, devastatingly honest personal diary set to music.

83
Consequence of Sound

With HBHBHB, Welch has added a considerable amount of feeling to her catalog, and it should go down as one of the year’s most well-crafted personal statements.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

Every song on How Big How Blue How Beautiful instead strives to be a thermonuclear warhead. And Welch’s struggle, with heartbreak and sobriety, is their emotional payload.

80
Billboard

It's not a radical reformation of Welch's style; she hasn't stripped all the ornamentation from her cathedral of sound and become a folky confessional songwriter. But she is resorting less to abstract, lofty imagery and speaking with a more frank immediacy.

80
Evening Standard

Florence Welch's third album is blustery, but succeeds when the tunes match her ambition.

80
Q Magazine
Musically, she delivers that desired top-down, sunny LA drive-time feel.
80
The Telegraph
Welch still has the love – and the tunes – we need to see us through.
80
Mojo

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is more lyrically direct and honest, even if the lure of The Big Music remains strong for Welch.

80
FasterLouder
Three albums into their career, Florence and The Machine know what they’re good at, and how to deliver what their fans want. Such confidence and self-assurance, when it consistently produces good albums, is something to be celebrated.
80
DIY
Getting personal in her own way, on her own terms, ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ could well be Florence’s finest hour of all. Things are only going to get bigger from here on in.
80
musicOMH
Despite trying out new things, the songs remain huge – the kind of power that is only truly effective when pumped out to thousands of people in a field somewhere. It makes for her best album to date, with some of the catchiest hooks and melodies she’s ever conjured up. How brilliant.
80
NME

Overflowing with stately songwriting and lyrical craftsmanship, ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ makes for a restrained but joyful return, and a collection that will last long after Welch’s broken bones are mended.

80
Paste

The 11 songs on Beautiful resonate in a deeper way by varying the sonic palette and focusing her words inward.

80
The 405

How Big... showcases a more restrained approach, allowing for quieter moments in which Welch can thrive.

76
Pitchfork
This is a huge, sturdy record, built for arenas ... and it's richly and carefully enough constructed to endure the extensive exposure Welch's heartache is going to get over the course of this summer.
75
Under the Radar

Welch and company have produced a series of songs that truly match the singer's formidable vocals while providing the players plenty of room to shine.

75
Spectrum Culture

How Big may find Florence and the Machine simplifying their approach, yet this album may be their most varied, and it is without question their best to date.

70
Drowned in Sound
She’s gone from making an album that felt in constant peril of collapsing under its own weight to one that carries her predilection for drama with genuine confidence - for now, at least, that’s redemption enough.
70
Sputnikmusic
If this is meant to be a transitional record – and, despite the halfhearted attempt to tone the theatrics down a notch, it certainly appears to be – it’s an album that nonetheless ends with a promising look ahead.
70
SPIN

She gets it occasionally on How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, and the results are brilliant, but the album too often focuses on the latter two-thirds of the album title at the expense of the first.

70
PopMatters

She’s as huge and commanding as ever on How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, the third album under the Florence and the Machine name, but the music that surrounds her is coupled with hints of restraint, making the record her sleekest and most gorgeous yet.

70
Rolling Stone
Finally, Welch is leaning hard into the classic rock and soul sounds her vocals always flirted with, like Ophelia in a Mondrian miniskirt.
70
The Needle Drop

Florence + The Machine pull together a succinct and tastefully written pop record on their latest effort here, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.

70
FLOOD Magazine
The honeymoon period is already over by the time “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” starts.
70
The Sydney Morning Herald
Relationship anguish takes torrid centre stage on the strong third album from the successful English baroque and roll band.
60
The Observer
Keep listening and the album title begins to seem like an aide memoire that Welch might have affixed to the mixing desk where she and new producer Markus Dravs thrashed out these 11 tracks.
60
The Irish Times

It's no surprise, then, that How Big How Blue How Beautiful is the equivalent of a calm breath of fresh air.

60
The Arts Desk
Pop juggernaut retains her flair for the dramatic on third album.
60
AllMusic
This attempt to reign in Welch's more histrionic tendencies yields mixed results, with some songs finding the sweet spot between bluster and nuance and others (most of them in the album's sleepy latter half) disappearing altogether.
60
The Independent
Welch confronts her demons in a frank manner.
60
Uncut
Welch delivers clunky self-help lines wrapped in elemental metaphors.
60
The Guardian
It’s an album that’s too overblown and daft for the songs to have the desired emotional impact: it’s never really intimate enough for the feelings Welch expresses to connect.
60
Clash

Florence & The Machine have delivered a much more dynamic record, that could draw in those put off by their overblown, dramatic sound.

NicoTheSnake
79

While analyzing this album for review, I couldn't help but think how great it must be to attend a Florence + The Machine concert, since many of the songs on this album, I feel like they are made to be heard live, so I found it interesting to think about that kind of thing while analyzing the whole album as a whole.

Well, now to begin with my review of the album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, I must say a couple of things before, first of all this is my first contact with this band, because ... read more

LukasLima
86

* Ship To Wreck (8.5/10)
* What Kind Of Man (7.5/10)
* How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (8.5/10)
* Queen Of Peace (9/10)
* Various Strorms & Saints (8/10)
* Delilah (9/10)
* Long & Lost (8/10)
* Caught (8.5/10)
* Third Eye (9.5/10)
* St. Jude (8.5/10)
* Mother (9/10)
* Hading (10/10)
* Make Up Your Mind (9.5/10)
* Which Witch (7.5/10)
* As Far As I Could Get (7.5/10)
* Pure Feeling (8/10)
* Conductor (9/10)

Nota Final: 86/100

GersonAOTY
86

"How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful" é a minha primeira introdução a Florence + The Machine. O meu pré-conhecimento sobre a banda era bastante limitado, conhecia apenas algumas das músicas mais famosas como "The Dog Days Over" e que estes artistas eram bastante apreciados pela comunidade indie, mas para além disso não muito mais.

Esta semana não tivemos grandes lançamentos que me tenham interessado bastante ... read more

LisbonBih
91

#11 RAR - Random Album Reviews

Fantastically ambitious LP, specially due to its wonderful 1st half but that middle section dragged it a tad down.

bloddyfever
100

This is my “i stuck in the mirror of high hopes and addictive love to someone who didn't deserve it all at first place”.
Just like a queen of peace, i always did my best to please, but you need to see what's hiding in the stranger's eyes, unless you will be the one who end up in oblivion. And it's hard sometimes to fail to hear of somebody you've waited for weeks, but don't tear yourself to bones, live regardless, for someone who will knock on your door later in life

arsenic
50

how long, how boring, how mediocre

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Track List

1Ship To Wreck
3:54
92
2What Kind of Man
3:36
91
3How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
5:34
91
4Queen of Peace
5:07
95
5Various Storms & Saints
4:09
86
6Delilah
4:53
90
7Long & Lost
3:15
84
8Caught
4:24
84
9Third Eye
4:20
88
10St Jude
3:45
89
11Mother
5:49
90
Total Length: 48 minutes
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Added on: February 12, 2015