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Ceremonials is the second studio album by English indie rock band Florence and the Machine. It was released on 28 October 2011 by Island Records. The band started working on the album in 2010 and finished it in 2011. The standard edition of the album was entirely produced by Paul Epworth, who also worked prominently on the band's debut album Lungs (2009).
Ceremonials received generally positive reviews from music critics, who drew comparisons to artists such as Kate Bush, while also praising the instrumentation, Florence Welch's vocals and the production of the songs. It appeared on several year-end critics' lists in late 2011. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, the album received a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, while "Shake It Out" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Ceremonials debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the band's second consecutive number-one album. It also debuted at number one in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and peaked at number six on the US Billboard 200, becoming the band's first top-10 album in the United States. It has sold 2 million copies worldwide.
Five singles were released from Ceremonials. "What the Water Gave Me" was released on 23 August 2011 as a teaser for the album. "Shake It Out" was released on 30 September 2011 as the album's official lead single, becoming one of the band's most commercially successful singles to date. "No Light, No Light" was released on 16 January 2012 as the second single from the album, and "Never Let Me Go" was released on 30 March 2012. "Spectrum (Say My Name)" was released on 5 July 2012, and fuelled by a remix by Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, became Florence and the Machine's first number-one single in the UK. The album's fifth and final single, "Lover to Lover", was released on 30 November 2012. Ceremonials was also promoted by the band by a worldwide tour, the Ceremonials Tour (2011–12). The album's sound is described as baroque pop, art pop, indie pop, neo soul, power pop and gothic pop.
Regarding the album's title, Welch told MTV News, "It was an art installation done in the '70s, this video piece all done on Super 8, this big procession of kind of coquette-style hippies and all these different colored robes and masks, and it was all to do with color, really saturated, brightly colored pastas and balloons. I saw it a couple years ago, and it was called 'Ceremonials' and then, like, Roman numerals after it. And the word sort of stuck with me, and I think the whole idea of performance, and kind of putting on this outfit and going out almost to find some sort of exorcism or absolution, to kind of get outside yourself, there's a sense of ceremony to it." Welch also revealed that she wanted to call the album Violence, stating, "I wanted to make an album that sounded like the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, the violence mixed with the classical Shakespearean drama mixed with the Popular culture and the pulp, extreme neon stuff." In an interview with The Guardian, she described the album as "much bigger" and categorised its genre as "chamber soul", a mixture of chamber pop and soul. The liner notes of Ceremonials contain an essay by English writer Emma Forrest, dated 21 September 2011.
Florence and the Machine embarked on several live performances to promote Ceremonials. The band premiered four tracks from the album—"Only If for a Night", "Never Let Me Go", "Heartlines" and "Spectrum"—at The Creators Project, a partnership between Vice and Intel, in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighbourhood on 15 October 2011. They launched the album with an exclusive gig at the Hackney Empire in London on 25 October, which was live-streamed on The Guardian website. On 1 November, they performed "What the Water Gave Me" and "No Light, No Light" on the British music television show Later... with Jools Holland. On 6 November, the band made their first appearance on The X Factor, where they performed "Shake It Out" on the double elimination results show. "Shake It Out" was also performed on the Irish late-night talk show The Late Late Show (28 October), The X Factor Australia (15 November) and Good Morning America (21 November).
They performed "Shake It Out" and "What the Water Gave Me" on the Canal+ show La Musicale in France on 18 November. The following day, Florence and the Machine appeared on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live for the second time, performing "Shake It Out" and "No Light, No Light". The group stopped by BBC Radio 1 on 25 November for a special Live Lounge set, which included performances of "Shake It Out", "What the Water Gave Me", "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)", "Dog Days Are Over" and "No Light, No Light", as well as a cover of "Take Care" by Drake featuring Rihanna. They performed "Spectrum" on The X Factor USA semi-final results show on 15 December. The band performed at the Los Angeles portion of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest, which was broadcast live on 31 December on ABC. The band performed "No Light, No Light" at the 2012 Brit Awards at the O2 Arena in on 21 February 2012. On 2 July 2012, a music video for "Breaking Down" was officially released.
"Shake It Out" was released as the album's official lead single on 30 September 2011. It premiered exclusively on XFM London on 14 September 2011. The song peaked at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Florence and the Machine's fourth top-20 single. Internationally, it reached number two on the Irish Singles Chart, while charting inside the top 20 in Austria, New Zealand and Norway, the top 30 in Germany and Switzerland, the top 40 in Australia, and the top 50 in Sweden.
"No Light, No Light" was released on 13 January 2012 as the second single from the album. The single reached number 63 on the UK Singles Chart. The accompanying video, released on 18 November 2011, caused controversy after it was accused of racism due to its perceived use of blackface by an actor in the video, and was also criticised for its depiction of Haitian Vodou.
"Never Let Me Go" was released on 30 March 2012 as the third single from the album. The music video was released on 7 March 2012. The track charted at number 82 in the UK, while reaching number three in Australia, the band's highest-peaking single in that country to date.
A remix of "Spectrum" by Scottish DJ and producer Calvin Harris, subtitled "Say My Name", was released on 5 July 2012 as the album's fourth single. It became the band's first number-one single in both the UK and Ireland.
"Lover to Lover" was released as the fifth and final single from the album on 30 November 2012. Directed by Vincent Haycock, the music video debuted on 19 November and features a new single version of the song.
Barry Nicolson of NME noted that "by taking what worked about Lungs and amplifying those qualities to a natural, satisfying conclusion, Florence has made a near-great Pop music record that should afford her the creative freedom to do whatever the hell she wants next time around." Rolling Stone writer Jody Rosen commented that the album contains "turbulent ballads, powered by booming drums and vocal chorales rising like distant thunder, full of Welch's banshee wails. The music touches on Celtic music, Blues rock stomps, nods to goth and gospel." The Daily Telegraphs Neil McCormick viewed Ceremonials as "a giant, fluid, emotionally resonant album" and stated, "Contrary to the name she has given her band, the Machine feel organic and human, providing an epic, full-blooded soundtrack to Welch's voodoo, in which rhythm, melody and chanting are employed to drive out neuroses and insecurities, characterised as ghosts and devils." Rob Harvilla of Spin described Welch as "a bloodied, bloodying songbird in a gilded cage of immaculately crafted, slow-burn, chest-beating empowerment anthems, gripping steel bars that her elegantly volcanic voice could shred at any moment", adding, "She's so much better than her material that her material is rendered immaterial."
Michael Hann of The Guardian concluded that the album "always sounds wonderful—producer Paul Epworth has created a warm, soft, four-poster featherbed of sound for Welch to emote over—but it never really satisfies. One yearns for Welch's wonderful voice to be delivering lines of more import than the nonsense she's often delivering here." In a mixed review, Slant Magazines Matthew Cole wrote that "the first four tracks of Ceremonials are essentially flawless", but felt that the album "can't help but get weaker as it continues, a fact which owes less to the quality of the songwriting than to the album's length ... and a far less dynamic second act." Andy Gill of The Independent expressed, "In cementing one style, some of the possibilities offered by Lungs have been choked off. The only time Welch and The Machine stray from the formula is the Krautrock-disco motorik of 'Spectrum'; elsewhere, declamatory piano chords and burring organ underpin the banked, soaring vocals that are her trademark". Pitchforks Ryan Dombal argued, "Instead of Lungs' largely charming yet discombobulating diversity, Ceremonials suffers from a repetitiveness that's akin to looking at a skyline filled with 100-story behemoths lined-up one after the other, blocking out everything but their own size."
The A.V. Club named it the 26th best album of 2011 and claimed, "A perfect blend of majestic and morose, Ceremonials establishes Welch as one of the most boundary-pushing divas in the business." Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 27 on its list of the 50 Best Albums of 2011, adding, "From 'Shake It Out' to the arena-scale Motown of 'Lover to Lover', Big Red brings it again and again, choirs and string players backing a voice that soars so high, it makes them seem like ants on the ground below." Clash, on its list of The Top 40 Albums of 2011, included Ceremonials at number 28 and opined that the album "heralded the triumphant return of one of Britain's most exciting pop stars. Bettering the sound she first developed on Lungs, the only problem she faces now is deciding which of its massive songs to release as singles." The NME placed the album at number 31 on its list of the 50 Best Albums of 2011, writing that the album "amounted to pop in its purest sense, as something grand and strange and with ambitions higher than mere humanity, as the triple-headed priestess-muse Florence depicted on its sleeve suggested."
The album earned the band nominations for British Female Solo Artist and MasterCard British Album of the Year at the 2012 Brit Awards. The following year at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Ceremonials received a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Shake It Out" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
The album also debuted at number one in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) in its first week of sales. It was ultimately certified quadruple platinum by the ARIA in 2023, signalling sales of 280,000 equivalent units. Selling 105,000 units in its opening week in the United States, Ceremonials entered the Billboard 200 at number six, while debuting atop the Alternative Albums, Rock Albums and Digital Albums charts. The album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 8 January 2015, and had sold 1,002,000 copies in the US by March 2015. As of May 2012, Ceremonials had sold 2 million copies worldwide.
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