Another promising artist falls after a fantastic debut. Whereas Florence + the Machine‘s debut album, Lungs, was an eclectic blend of styles, Ceremonials sticks to one producer and thus only one kind of sound: Loud. Ceremonials is monotonous in its constant bombast and is simply a less engaging listen than Lungs. Imagine taking “Cosmic Love” off of Lungs and making it into 12 songs that lack the lush string arrangements of the aforementioned. Florence Welch’s over-powering voice is far too much at the front of the album’s mix and overshadows the instruments (try to listen for the harp in the opening track—it’s like a game!). The lyrics are often far too literal for their surreal subjects of ghosts and spirits, coming across as trite.

Ceremonials isn’t a bad album and has its few highlights, but it’s utterly unmemorable when Lungs was a modern classic. Florence + The Machine have gone the way of pop soul, taking what used to be only one aspect of Lungs and pushing it to an extreme, moving closer to self-parody and reaching blandness.