“DON’T touch the sleeping pills, they mess with my head” sings Florence Welch on the opening lyrics to ‘Ship to Wreck’ and instantly it becomes clear that album number three is the most personal piece of work the 28-year-old has released so far.

“I had to fall apart a bit” said Welch of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’s gestation, citing a broken down relationship and the correlative drinking problems which followed afterwards. Welch hasn’t really abandoned the soaring baroque pop motifs which saw her shift a cumulative five million albums between 2009 and 2011 like she claims, but lyrically there is a definite shift from the metaphorical to the literal or, as the songstress put it with her tongue ever so slightly in cheek, “less big dresses and sounds to hide behind”.

Welch sounds almost world weary on the gothic opening strains of ‘WHAT KIND OF MAN’, her lioness roar tempered as she wistfully contemplates the past (“so I’d reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it, you were on the other side and like always, you could never make up your mind”), but just when it feels in danger of becoming overly doleful, in burst resuscitative orchestral horn blasts, arena razing guitars and the snarling choral refrain (“what kind of man loves like this?” wonders Welch with audible disdain). Its vex is only matched by the neopagan projections of ‘MOTHER’, the album closer which starts out as a bluesy, Buckingham-esque guitar line and ends in catharsis by way of an ear shattering wall of feedback and chest-ripping ‘woah oh oh’s’.

Production is overseen by Markus Dravs and it’s not hard to arrive at the opinion that the long-term Arcade Fire collaborator is having some fun with the embarrassment of riches at the projects disposal. Calling the title track “indulgent” feels like an understatement given it utilises a three dozen strong orchestra and string section – its grandiose outro giving the impression that it was written for the BBC Proms rather than a mainstream pop album.

“DELILAH” is just as big, albeit in a completely different sense as Welch sets off a slightly demented falsetto against a down tempo piano which for a brief moment sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on an Ed Banger house track. The broken, tremolo guitar and languid violins of “VARIOUS STORMS & SAINTS” offers some respite in between; the tracks relative minimalism saying much more with less.

Even better is ‘ST JUDE’ – in fact, it’s quite possibly the best song Florence + the Machine have ever written – another huge ballad which even arrived with a Dante-inspired video, but unlike the aforementioned, still manages to sound both sincere and heart felt.

When Avery Lipman, the president of the bands stateside label, was asked about How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, he rather coldly put it that “we would not be satisfied with anything but a number one release” – something Florence + the Machine have yet to achieve across the pond. At points it feels like it’s this pressure which compromises the albums mission statement of peeling away the layers and making something honest. Welch opens up and lays herself bare, but the words and sentiment don’t hold the same impact amidst the musical bombast. It’s no doubt blue, it’s without doubt big, but it sometimes feels like it’s just trying too hard to be beautiful.