Florence + the Machine - High As Hope

Florence + the Machine's High As Hope trades the storm for something more intimate, pressed here on 180-gram vinyl.

After the towering drama of her first three albums, Florence Welch took a hand in producing her fourth herself, working alongside Emile Haynie and turning her gaze inward. Released in 2018, it is her most autobiographical record, full of South London streets, family history and the hard-won calm of someone learning to sit still with her own feelings.

"Hunger" is the emotional core, a candid look back at a teenage struggle with food that blooms into a soaring, communal chorus. "South London Forever" captures youthful nights out with wistful clarity, and "Big God" is the album's most striking moment, with Jamie xx on drums and synths and Kamasi Washington's saxophone wailing through the darkness. Sampha even turns up on piano for "Grace", a tender apology to her sister.

The arrangements are spacious and warm, built from piano, strings and choir-like harmonies that give Welch's voice room to rise and fall. Ten songs come in under forty minutes, and none of them is wasted.

High As Hope proves she can be just as powerful at a whisper as at full roar, and it sounds gorgeous on heavy vinyl.