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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
It’s taken three goes but to my mind, ‘How Big’ is her first really great album.
91
How Big is Welch’s most accomplished album yet, primarily because she doesn’t rely solely on operatics to make herself heard.
90
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.
7mo
90
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
The greater the risk, the greater the reward. And I can think of no better reward than this album.
85
How Big How Blue How Beautiful is a cathartic, devastatingly honest personal diary set to music.
83
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
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
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
Florence Welch's third album is blustery, but succeeds when the tunes match her ambition.
80
Musically, she delivers that desired top-down, sunny LA drive-time feel.
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3y
80
Welch still has the love – and the tunes – we need to see us through.
80
How bold, how brave, how buoyant.
80
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is more lyrically direct and honest, even if the lure of The Big Music remains strong for Welch.
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11mo
80
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
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
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
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
The 11 songs on Beautiful resonate in a deeper way by varying the sonic palette and focusing her words inward.
80
How Big... showcases a more restrained approach, allowing for quieter moments in which Welch can thrive.
76
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Finally, Welch is leaning hard into the classic rock and soul sounds her vocals always flirted with, like Ophelia in a Mondrian miniskirt.
70
Florence + The Machine pull together a succinct and tastefully written pop record on their latest effort here, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.
70
The honeymoon period is already over by the time “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” starts.
70
Relationship anguish takes torrid centre stage on the strong third album from the successful English baroque and roll band.
60
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
It's no surprise, then, that How Big How Blue How Beautiful is the equivalent of a calm breath of fresh air.
60
Pop juggernaut retains her flair for the dramatic on third album.
60
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
Welch confronts her demons in a frank manner.
60
Welch delivers clunky self-help lines wrapped in elemental metaphors.
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11mo
60
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
Florence & The Machine have delivered a much more dynamic record, that could draw in those put off by their overblown, dramatic sound.
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
* 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
"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
Favorite: Third Eye
Worst: Mother
2. What Kind Of Man (70/100)
3. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (75/100)
4. Queen Of Peace (80/100)
5. Various Strorms & Saints (70/100)
6. Delilah (80/100)
7. Long & Lost (70/100)
8. Caught (65/100)
9. Third Eye (85/100)
10. St. Jude (70/100)
11. Mother (60/100)
Final Note: 75
Quick Review: Inovando, saindo um pouco da pegada do 1° e do 2° álbum sendo mais calmo, não que seja ruim, mas caiu um pouco.
Resumindo este álbum: Magnum Opus! Como Florence + the Machine foram tão certeiros a fazerem um álbum fruto de uma separação, recheado de elementos de rock e com um toque de bruxaria. O melhor álbum da carreira e um dos melhores álbuns já feitos. Sabe-se que a Florence costuma criar atmosferas em cima de seus álbuns e neste não seria diferente. Aqui é como um ritual, de bruxaria, mas com cheiro de álcool e ... read more
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Track List
| 1 | Ship To Wreck 3:54 | 92 |
| 2 | What Kind of Man 3:36 | 91 |
| 3 | How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful 5:34 | 92 |
| 4 | Queen of Peace 5:07 | 95 |
| 5 | Various Storms & Saints 4:09 | 86 |
| 6 | Delilah 4:53 | 90 |
| 7 | Long & Lost 3:15 | 84 |
| 8 | Caught 4:24 | 84 |
| 9 | Third Eye 4:20 | 88 |
| 10 | St Jude 3:45 | 90 |
| 11 | Mother 5:49 | 90 |
Total Length: 48 minutes
Year End Lists
| #4 | / | Time Out London |
| #5 | / | People |
| #10 | / | Q Magazine |
| #15 | / | Digital Spy |
| #15 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
| #17 | / | Billboard |
| #22 | / | Rolling Stone |
| #25 | / | Popjustice |
| #29 | / | No Ripcord |
| #29 | / | Paste |
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Added on: February 12, 2015