★★★★★

On the standout song from her fifth album Florence Welch displays impeccable judgment. South London Forever is not only a tribute to, as we south Londoners know, the best side of the Thames, but also a beautiful eulogy to youth. “Young and drunk and stumbling in the street outside the Joiners Arms, like foals unsteady on their feet,” sings Welch, recalling poetically a wild night out in Camberwell that climaxed with her climbing on to the roof of the nearby Horniman Museum before forgetting the way back to her mum’s house.

Lyrical vignettes combine with increasingly euphoric choral swells and piano stabs to capture the excitement of anonymous irresponsibility, something Welch was, without knowing it, about to lose for ever. “Did I dream too