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Mar 22, 2012It's this robust fervor and subject matter that fire up and lift up many of the songs on Ceremonials, but the constant exhortation comes at a price. Listener fatigue sets in as the relentless, up-tempo pace and sharply exclamatory vocal tone overwhelms over the course of the album.
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MojoJan 10, 2012For all the florid curlicues and crescendos, Welch's second album is light on true beauty, real idiosyncrasy. [Dec. 2011, p.94]
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Nov 7, 2011What's offered on Ceremonials is solid, even a cut or two above solid. But it doesn't move the band forward.
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Nov 3, 2011Like Mickey Mouse conducting the ocean in Fantasia, she often seems more a celestial vessel for the heady energy and abstract imagery than a relatable character--a balance she doesn't always strike.
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Nov 3, 2011Instead of Lungs' largely charming yet discombobulating diversity, Ceremonials suffers from a repetitiveness that's akin to looking at a skyline filled with 100-story behemoths lined-up one after the other, blocking out everything but their own size.
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Nov 1, 2011As a second album, it is perfectly acceptable and there are many aspects of it to admire. But the static present on much of Ceremonials cannot quantify the record as anything but a regression in broader terms.
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Nov 1, 2011As it stands, the best that could be said about Ceremonials is that it's a pleasant enough listen that will change absolutely nobody's mind about Florence and her machine.
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Oct 28, 2011But in cementing one style, some of the possibilities offered by Lungs have been choked off.
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Oct 27, 2011This is all grandeur without any grace.
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Oct 27, 2011Ceremonials always sounds wonderful--producer Paul Epworth has created a warm, soft, four-poster featherbed of sound for Welch to emote over--but it never really satisfies.
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Nov 7, 2011In making the songs so monumental, Florence and the Machine have also made them impersonal.
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Nov 2, 2011For a while, it's promising: "Only If for a Night" pits Welch's soulful-and-strange vocal gymnastics against a firecracker beat and a gang of chorus chanters. But elsewhere, Ceremonials feels drained of personality.
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UncutNov 11, 2011The result is exhausting, an album of songs that all want to be showstoppers. [Dec 2011, p.86]
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Oct 31, 2011Ceremonials never comes down off the high precipice.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 541 out of 585
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Mixed: 13 out of 585
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Negative: 31 out of 585
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Nov 1, 2011
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Nov 1, 2011
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Nov 15, 2011