搬運(yùn)自：微信公眾號(hào)【評(píng)論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語(yǔ)原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Peter D

校正：Ryan-Chopin

排版：Peter D

Florence Welch has built her career on the premise that she feels things more painfully and powerfully than anybody else. Accordingly, her band's third studio album?How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful?is one long Ophelia mad scene, a breakup record from the point of view of someone who is absolutely convinced that her breakup is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to anyone.

Florence Welch的音樂(lè)事業(yè)建立在這樣一個(gè)前提上：她對(duì)事物的感知比別人都要更加痛苦和強(qiáng)烈。因此，她的樂(lè)隊(duì)的第三張錄音室專輯《How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful》就像是一出漫長(zhǎng)的Ophelia（譯者注：莎士比亞戲劇《哈姆雷特》中人物）發(fā)瘋的戲劇場(chǎng)景，其角度所在顯然是確信自己的分手會(huì)是最慘絕人寰之事，從而創(chuàng)造了這張分手專輯。

She makes a pretty good case for that, to be fair. "What was it that I said?/ I can't help but pull the earth around me to make my bed," she cries in "Ship to Wreck", which goes from sleeping pills to great white sharks in its first two lines. Welch has?quoted?producer Markus Dravs as telling her that she's "not allowed to write any more songs about water," although she appears to have dodged that dictum at every opportunity.

公平地說(shuō)，她對(duì)這一點(diǎn)有著相當(dāng)充分的理由?！拔覄倓傉f(shuō)的那是什么呀？/我無(wú)法控制自己，只能拉來(lái)大地做我的床榻，”她在“Ship to Wreck（將沉之船）”中如此哭喊道。而在這首歌一開(kāi)頭的兩行里就從安眠藥寫(xiě)到了大白鯊。Welch曾說(shuō)制作人Markus Dravs告訴過(guò)自己“不許再寫(xiě)更多關(guān)于水的歌了”，但她似乎已經(jīng)利用了一切機(jī)會(huì)來(lái)逃避這條要求。

These aren't just songs about heartbreak; they're songs about total and utter eclipses of the heart. "Delilah", for instance, concerns the epic psychic carnage involved in waiting for a phone call from a boyfriend, and yes, that's Delilah as in Samson. (Several songs later, she's "thrashing on the line," this time as a fish.) Over the course of the album, she also invokes (or casts herself as) Persephone, Lot's wife, the Virgin Mary, Daphne, Jonah, and St. Jude—both the saint and the?European storm, alluded to in both senses in two different songs. Over "Queen of Peace"'s stomps and choir and horns, she imagines herself "dissolving like the setting sun/ Like a boat into oblivion/' CAUSE YOU'RE DRIVING ME AWAAAAAAY!" (See? Aquatic lyrics again.)

這些不僅僅是些描寫(xiě)心碎的歌曲，而是描寫(xiě)完完全全、徹徹底底的心灰意冷之音。例如歌曲“Delilah”中就講到她在等待男朋友來(lái)電時(shí)一場(chǎng)發(fā)生在腦海中的史詩(shī)級(jí)大屠殺，沒(méi)錯(cuò)，這里的Delilah就是Samson（譯者注：著名圣經(jīng)人物參孫）的故事中的那個(gè)Delilah。（而在幾首歌之后，她又“在邊界上翻來(lái)覆去”，這次是化作了一條魚(yú)。）在整張專輯的行進(jìn)中，她還引用了（或是把自己表現(xiàn)為）Persephone，Lot's wife，the Virgin Mary，Daphne，Jonah，和St. Jude——既是指那位圣人，也是指歐洲的那場(chǎng)風(fēng)暴，并在2首不同的歌曲中對(duì)這兩個(gè)場(chǎng)景都有影射。在“Queen of Peace（和平女王）”的踏步聲、和聲以及號(hào)聲中，她想象著自己“如落日一般消散/像小舟駛?cè)胍鶞缰?因?yàn)槟阏隍?qū)我離去——！”（看到了嗎？又是關(guān)于水的歌詞。）

It takes an alarming seriousness of purpose to pull this stuff off—the campy playfulness of Florence and the Machine's 2009 debut single "Kiss With a Fist" wouldn't do. The obvious presence lurking near Welch's current songwriting is Adele, whose "Rolling in the Deep" she has to wish she'd thought of first, but the other source of inspiration floating nearby is PJ Harvey, specifically the PJ Harvey of?To Bring You My Love. (As with Harvey, there's a lot of gender-flipping in Welch's lyrics: "Mother" would be very obviously a gospel song if it were called "Father".) Welch's voice trembles and groans until she hauls herself up to the parts of her songs that she can belt out with desperate, bleating vibrato. And the arrangements on?How Big?are?this?big: lush and ornate, tinkering with their details every few seconds, cresting and crashing and cresting and cresting some more. The title track's orchestral coda is worthy of?Trevor Horn's wildest fantasies.

完成這些需要有著驚人的嚴(yán)肅和目的性，這是Florence and the Machine 2009年的出道單曲“Kiss With a Fist（與拳相伴的吻）”中那種不太自然的戲謔所做不到的。Welch近期的歌曲寫(xiě)作最明顯的影響來(lái)自Adele，她一定希望自己能更早一步想到“Rolling in the Deep（深淵中翻滾）”。而其他的靈感則來(lái)自PJ Harvey，尤其是“To Bring You My Love（把我的愛(ài)帶給你）”中的PJ Harvey。（和PJ Harvey一樣，Welch的歌詞中也有不少性別轉(zhuǎn)換：“Mother（母親）”這首歌如果改叫“Father”一定會(huì)變成一首非常明顯的福音歌曲。）Welch的聲音顫抖著，呻吟著，知道她把自己拉到歌中的話自己就可以帶著絕望和微弱的顫音引吭需要高歌的部分。就像名字中的“How Big”一樣，這張專輯的編曲的確顯得如此宏大：豐富而華麗，每隔幾秒鐘就有細(xì)節(jié)上的修修補(bǔ)補(bǔ)，爬坡再驟降，再不斷繼續(xù)爬坡。專輯同名曲的管弦樂(lè)尾聲完美配上Trevor Horn的大膽幻想。

What really binds?How Big?together, though, is Welch's exceptional sense for melody. No matter how tormented these songs get, they let her show off with grand, arching vocal lines, leaping deftly across her registers. (There are going to be a lot of disappointed karaoke singers signing up for "What Kind of Man" or "Delilah", then discovering that their range is nowhere near Welch's.) This is a huge, sturdy record, built for arenas—the band is among the headliners at this year's Bonnaroo, Roskilde, Lollapalooza and Governors Ball—and it's richly and carefully enough constructed to endure the extensive exposure Welch's heartache is going to get over the course of this summer.

然而真正把整張專輯緊密結(jié)合起來(lái)的，是Welch對(duì)于旋律的卓越感知力。無(wú)論這些歌曲變得多么折磨人，它們都讓W(xué)elch完美地展現(xiàn)出她那恢弘而磅礴的聲線，在她的音區(qū)中靈活地跳動(dòng)。（一定會(huì)有一大堆失望的卡拉OK歌手們?cè)噲D演唱“What Kind of Man”或“Delilah”，然后發(fā)現(xiàn)自己音域完全夠不著Welch的邊。）這是一張宏大而堅(jiān)實(shí)的專輯，簡(jiǎn)直像是為體育場(chǎng)而作——這支樂(lè)隊(duì)也在今年的Bonnaroo，Roskilde，Lollapalooza和Governors Ball的領(lǐng)銜嘉賓行列中——同時(shí)專輯的架構(gòu)也豐富、謹(jǐn)慎，足以承受這個(gè)夏天Welch的心痛歷程與那隨即而來(lái)的廣泛曝光。