Florence Welch, an art-school dropout from South London, first gained fame at home with two bombastic singles; "Kiss with a Fist" and "Dog Days are Over". Her debut album is co-produced by Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Maximo Park), James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets) and Steve Mackay (PULP, M.I.A), and has already amassed a hefty amount of critical acclaim in the UK. Live, Florence and the Machine becomes an entirely different beast. No two performances are ever alike, and clad i n clothes often culled from local second-hand shops that day, Florence goes at it like a woman possessed. As for the Machine, it's a flexible monster. Florence and the Machine will be making an appearance this Fall in the States, a show that you will not want to miss. On her debut album, LUNGS, Florence makes her way through 13-standout tracks including "Girl with One Eye," "Howl," "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," "Hurricane Drunk," and many more.
Precocious Brit Florence Welch fired a bullet into the head of the U.K. music scene in 2008 with the single "Kiss with a Fist," a punk-infused, perfectly juvenile summer anthem that had critics wiping the names Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, and Kate Nash from their vocabularies and replacing them with Florence and the Machine. While the comparisons were apt at the time, "Kiss with a Fist" turned out to be a red herring in the wake of the release of Lungs, one of the most musically mature and emotionally mesmerizing albums of 2009. With an arsenal of weaponry that included the daring musicality of Kate Bush, the fearless delivery of Sinead O'Connor, and the dark, unhinged vulnerability of Fiona Apple, the London native crafted a debut that not only lived up to the machine-gun spray of buzz that heralded her arrival, but easily surpassed it. Like Kate Bush, Welch has little interest (for the most part) in traditional pop structures, and her songs are at their best when they see something sparkle in the woods and veer off of the main trail in pursuit. "Kiss with a Fist," as good as it is, pales in comparison to stand-out cuts like "Dog Days Are Over," "Hurricane Drunk," "Drumming Song," "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," and "Cosmic Love," all of which are anchored to the earth by Welch's knockout voice (which hopefully in time will lose the occasional Natalie Merchant affectation), and a truly impressive and intuitive trio of producers and a backing band that sounds as intimate with the material as its creator. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi
![Colin Hay - Company Of Strangers [Remastered] [Bonus Track] - Music & Performance - CD](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/66985f42-31df-4ae2-b11b-f55d89ce4b8f.8698e73f265478eb5a466ae3a38a28ad.jpeg?odnHeight=576&odnWidth=576&odnBg=FFFFFF)
