Florence & The Machine

You can't get much more English than a name like Florence Welch, but the woman behind Florence + the Machine owns up to it and then some. Her powerful pipes plow through familiar Brit bases -- Joss Stone's neo-soul, PJ Harvey's eerie rock, Kate Bush's artsy pop, Goldfrapp's flirty electro-pop. But she also digs around in other terrains, hitting the sultry jadedness of Fiona Apple and Cat Power ("Girl With One Eye") and battling White Stripes-like riffs ("Kiss With a Fist"). She's very smart about it too, bringing in a wealth of musicians skilled in each of the styles she takes on.

At points on her debut album, Lungs, Florence Welch suggests she's a wild Englishwoman
on par with PJ Harvey: She sets her boyfriend ablaze and cuts out a girl's eye because the
bitch won't get her "filthy fingers outta my pie." Welch sets her unique ideas about
romance to punk blues, Kate Bush-style mystic art rock and crazy-Celt bombast (where her
voice skirts near the Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan's). The best bits feel like bei... More >