Florrie - Magic For A While
Words: Tom Gensler
Florence Ellen Arnold, or Florrie, as she’s better known, made a name for herself drumming with the production group Xenomania, playing on Girls Aloud, Alesha Dixon and Kylie Minogue tracks, amongst others. She started a solo career in the 2010s, and released her breakthrough debut album, The Lost Ones, in 2024. Magic For A While is her second studio album, and it arrives after 5 single releases, promising catchy pop hooks and sing-along moments.
The production across the record is, as expected, extremely crisp, but not too showy, giving the songs their space to breathe and shine without overdoing it. There’s a faded neon glow to the songs, and it's very easy listening.
Most of the songs are very similar, in being slow-burn, repetitive, sing-along pop hits. There’s a bit of a karaoke vibe to some of them - like the title track. Florrie is very good at writing these big, catchy, old-school hits, however they might be a bit dated in the progressive pop landscape where pop is growing outwards and outwards, but the tracks are fun and mostly work.
Unfortunately, there’s a rather large negative working against the album; it's length. At 52 minutes, it's a large listen. Most of them cross the 4-minute work, and, on a pop album, that’s rare, and I don’t think it works, some of the songs just go on too long needlessly. The biggest example is Warrior, one of the singles, in which the lines "I don’t care // ooo I just don’t care" are repeated for around a minute at the end of the song, which drags the record back. There’s nothing wrong with simple songwriting but it doesn’t work when it's repeated, and the song caps in at 5 minutes, and most of that is just the chorus repeated again and again and again. If the songs were shorter the lyrics would work much better and the songs would be much more enjoyable, and plus it would detract from the fact that 75% of the songs sound very alike and blend into one another.
There is a clear standout song of the album, and that’s Catch You If You Fall, which self-justifies its length through sharper, more lyrical songwriting as opposed to catchy repetition. It's much more emotional and the feelings are potent here, the slower pace is good for letting us, the listeners, grasp the rawness of the situation, and the flashbacks to childhood found in seeing someone again is really beautiful, so this song hits both sonically and lyrically.
The songs are solid but held back by long lengths and repetition, which is a shame, because this would be a really fantastic album if it had that shortness, sharpness, and precision. It's a good, chill listen but if you’re an active listener who thinks in-depth about songs you might not enjoy this, however, I do think Florrie is a wonderful artist with a beautiful voice and high levels of talent, and I am looking forward to what she does next.
