Florence Welch's wonderful fourth album marks the realisation of a singular talent. It was evident that the English singer-songwriter was something special from her first releases, a decade ago. Under the band identity Florence + The Machine, she arrived with an imperial stage presence, powerhouse vocals and a flamboyant, percussive rock attack. Now, at 31, with her most intimate and revealing set of songs, Welch has refined a sound so uniquely her own it really couldn't be mistaken for the work of any other artist.

High as Hope starts with Welch drawing a tense breath before she even begins to sing. The first line of the opening track, June, spills out like an exhausted confession from someone at crisis point: "The show was ending and I had started to crack." It is as if she has suddenly decided that nothing less than the whole truth will do. Over 10 songs, she takes listeners on a wild journey across a vast musical terrain, from an intimacy so quiet you can hear a piano pedal squeak to a dizzying avalanche of orchestra, electronics, thunderous drums and towering, multi-tracked vocals.

Produced by Welch with Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars), with subtle contributions from such outstanding studio wizards as Sampha and Jamie xx, High as Hope has an analogue atmosphere that sounds utterly contemporary while managing to avoid the fashionable manipulations of digital pop.