Written by: Rebecca Eckland

(Photo by Tom Beard)

Florence + The Machine’s How Big How Blue How Beautiful will be out June 2nd.

Written and recorded in 2014, How Big How Blue How Beautiful follows the Grammy-nominated Ceremonials (2011) which utilized Welch’s love of fantasy and metaphor for its lyrical content and overall feel.

How Big How Blue How Beautiful ventures into more literal terrain, tackling some heavy issues. Taking a full year off music, Welch told BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe that during that year she: “…was still going out and going to events but something wasn’t quite right, I was spiralling a bit. I wasn’t making myself happy. I wasn’t stable.” She also alluded to an “on and off relationship with drinking.”

“It was a really vulnerable time for me when we first started making the record,” she told Lowe, “and because of that it’s the most personal record I’ve ever made.”

Produced by Markus Dravis with contributions from Paul Epworth, Kid Harpoon and John Hill, the album’s first single “What Kind Of Man” is available now on iTunes.