Here's a new, elegiac track from Florence + The Machine, accompanied by a beautiful if heavy-handed video: it's set at twilight in suburban ruins, with Florence's rained-on wandering accompanied by a starling murmuration, a man who carries her like Marissa in Tijuana and a mystical hobo of sorts who asks her if she's lost. (Wow.... maybe we're all lost, am I right...........) Anyway, Florence's wet look references the second meaning of St. Jude: not just the patron saint of lost causes, but the storm that hit northern Europe in 2013.
From the two official tracks and live snippets that have come out Florence's upcoming How Big How Blue How Beautiful, it seems that she's stepping away from the extremely high-octane, witchy vocal lightning storms that made half of Ceremonials feel like a somewhat inorganic listen; the songwriting on both "St. Jude" and lead single "What Kind of Man" come closer to the palette of her first album Lungs, though they're still far shot of that album's remarkable, sui generis freshman energy. If you haven't heard "What Kind of Man," it's below, and the album comes out June 1.