Marcel Winatschek

Snakes in the Basement, Louisiana

Someone described Florence Welch’s music as what Lily Allen or Kate Nash would make if they’d grown up locked in a cage full of snakes in the basement of a funeral home in Louisiana. I have nothing to add to that. It is completely correct and I refuse to improve upon it.

What I will say is that every artist clawing for attention in an oversaturated media landscape needs some degree of genuine derangement just to register. Florence has it. "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" is big and bright and loud, with a video that looks like it was excavated from some sun-bleached historical nightmare—she ends up submerged in a river by her own people, which is an ending I respect. The whole thing reminds me of Bat for Lashes, just with more daylight and slightly less dread. Her album Lungs was one of those records I already knew I’d be listening to for years before I’d heard more than two songs from it.