Since the beginning of her career as an empowered singer-songwriter, nearly everything that Florence Welch has done as Florence + The Machine has been grand and awe-inspiring. Last month, Welch released her most personal work yet—the electrifying How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful—and now she’s continuing on that emotional journey with a brand-new music video for two of the LP’s tracks: “Queen Of Peace” and “Long & Lost.”
The double-feature video, which premiered at NPR today, finds Welch at the center of a vicious group of men who want nothing more than to beat the shit out of each other. Even as she tries to stop the ultra-violence through love, compassion, and peace within the first half of the video (“Queen of Peace”), the group’s inherent nature has overruled. Welch is shipped out as a victim of this bloodlust within the second half (“Long And Lost”).
While there are very few lines in the mini-film besides the lyrics to the How Beautiful songs, the video’s gorgeous setting of the coast of Scotland speaks for itself. The video’s director (and frequent Florence + The Machine collaborator) Vincent Haycock explained the importance of the location:
We filmed “Queen of Peace” and “Long & Lost” in Scotland, one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to or filmed. The coast of Scotland is breathtaking, beautiful and harsh, an aesthetic mix that both Florence and I have been very interested in during the making of these videos. The Scottish people are amazing and especially the town of Easdale, the small island that we lived on and filmed. We shot in the winter and it was cold, brutal and endlessly inspiring, which I think really helped the story of Florence’s struggle with her family, the younger innocence vs. the feuding violence of the men around her, etc. The end of the video was done in a single take, at the very last seconds of light during a stormy barge ride on a freezing sea. The effort and focus on both the actors and crew was so amazing, Florence delivers one of my favorite moments to date and it’s one of my proudest technical and narrative accomplishments.
Watch the video at NPR now, and make sure to check out Welch’s upcoming tour dates below.
Florence + The Machine tour dates
August
3 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
October
9 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheatre
11 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
13 – Phoenix, AZ – Ak-Chin Pavilion
14 – San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena
16-17 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
20 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl
21-22 – Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre
24 – Portland, OR – Portland Memorial Coliseum
25 – Vancouver, BC – Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena
27 – Seattle, WA – Key Arena
