Album: Florence and the Machine - How Big, How Beautiful

3/5

Florence Welch has, by all accounts, been through a gruelling time since her 2011 album, Ceremonials, catapulted her onto the arena-rock A-list.Exhausted by endless touring, her personal life in disarray, she was adrift and confused: she had achieved everything she had dreamed of — so why did she feel so empty inside?

The nadir, she subsequently confessed, was an MTV interview, during which she was conspicuously the worse for wear. It set alarms clanging: she’d plunged into the lifestyle of carefree rock goddess and it had started to turn dark.