To all the guys out there, if you’ve ever sat through p.s. I Love You starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler, you’ll know that the movie makes listening to Slipknot played backwards at maximum volume for 12 hours straight seem more fulfilling. It’s the story of a charming Irish lad who falls in love with an American tourist. They marry. He dies. She is sad. Her friends worry that she will be sad forever. Then one day, while she is still being sad, a birthday cake and tape recorded message from the charming Irish lad mysteriously arrives, marking the beginning of a series of letters that guide her on a magical life journey that the charming Irish lad has found the time to plan for her… No prizes for guessing how each letter ends. They lay it on so thick in this movie that you feel like you’ve been swamped by a tidal wave of honey mixed with treacle and syrup. You can’t move, you can’t think, you feel slightly sick.

Girls really should know better than to even let their guys watch stuff like this, let alone actively persuade them to do so. It’s the equivalent of making a guy inspect the contents of those mysterious little bins they have in the ladies’ bathrooms. We don’t want to know. We’re better off not knowing. There’s a whole universe of girly stuff that men should never see. The line “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” induces nausea in men. It makes girls’ eyes well up with tears of joy. Enough said.

The same goes for music. Take the song “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillat. Just that title alone is hard for me to look at. Bubbly? Are you joking? But check out some of the lyrics of this ode to being a girley girl: “Every time I see your bubbly face, I get the tinglies in a silly place/It starts in my toes and I crinkle my nose…” Ok, now I’m actually retching. Can I just point out that this is some hardcore frontline journalism going on right now people. I am currently wearing a bulletproof vest, reporting from the heart of chickdom – a pink, fluffy place where few men dare to tread for fear of being put off girls forever. I hope you appreciate it.

Anyway, that crinkly nose shit is like napalm for guys, just as Megadeth is for girls (at least the kind you want to hang out with). So, I think we’ve established that, while opposite sexes are often drawn to each other, there will always be parts of them that go together like oil and water. They’re best kept separate. Just occasionally though, something comes along that both sexes can get their kicks from.

Florence + the Machine could, at first glance, be deemed to be music designed for chicks. But it’s so much more than that. Yes, ladies are clearly going to dig it. But it’s a bit like Pixar movies such as Shrek or The Incredibles – they throw plenty of extremely witty stuff in there for the adults, making these movies great to watch and taking the pain out of accompanying your kids to the cinema. Now I’m not saying that girls are like kids and guys are like adults, I’m just saying that Florence + the Machine have made music that girls will love and guys will appreciate too. But it’s not because they’ve put stuff in there for guys; it’s just because the sheer force of its power respects no boundaries.

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Whilst much of the subject matter is about hopeless romance and epic drama, the same could be said for much of Led Zeppelin. Ceremonials is Florence + the Machine’s second album after the brilliant Lungs – which I reviewed some time ago. They’ve handled the “difficult second album” syndrome perfectly, building on and evolving the sound established by their debut. The epic choruses are even more epic, the huge, speaker-melting production values are even huger and, of course, Florence Welch’s ridiculously powerful vocal delivery has matured into a something more complex, with more shades and nuances. She is awesome – the closer she gets to the line where brilliance becomes absurdity, the better the music gets.

The only reason she is able to sail so close to the wind is because of her exceptional vocal talents, which allow her to fly higher than most. A lesser singer would seem silly singing, “I’m gonna leave my body (going up to higher ground), I’m gonna lose my mind (history keeps pulling me down)” in a huge mid tempo, sweeping melody. Only Bono would have the sheer nerve to pull it off.

The track Shake It Out, is an anthem about starting over, “I am done with my graceless heart/So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart”. Again, it’s not what she says, it’s the way she says it. It’s not a voice; it’s a force of nature, big enough to tackle themes equally as gargantuan – death, love, heartbreak, religion… nothing too trivial. What The Water Gave Me is essentially about the watery death of a spurned lover, “Lay me down, let the only sound, be the overflow…” Girls will be swept away by the romance of it all, guys will appreciate the music itself – there’s nothing delicate about it, it’s thick, driving, not dissimilar to thunder rolling through a vast valley. So, if you’re hitting the road this Christmas, firstly, drive safely and watch out for the madness that is the South African driver, and secondly, if you’re having a lover’s tiff about what to listen to, try a spot of Florence + the Machine. Happy Christmas everybody!