Florence Welch is a very un-British kind of Brit. She’s missing that all-important characteristic most of us born in the motherland take for granted. The one that stops us from making small talk in lifts, readily striking up conversation with strangers and acting with the kind of carefree abandon displayed by Ms. Welch (unless we’ve drunk our own body-weight in warm beer, of course).

The lack of British reserve is occasionally a curse, but mainly a blessing for Welch. On the plus side, she refuses to acknowledge boundaries set by prevailing taste or trend. As a result she can create songs that blow welcome blasts of icy air through stale and fetid preconceptions.

On the flip side, her uninhibited nature can sometimes be the devil on her shoulder; a purveyor of misguided advice who believes that Welch absolutely must shoe-horn in every single idea – even if the song in question is already fit to burst (did Blinding really need all those strings?).

Although certain elements of Florence and the Machine’s debut Lungs teeter on the brink of overkill, this is truly impressive release. The comparisons to Kate Bush are certainly warranted, but not because Welch particularly sounds like her. The connection can be found in the storybook aesthetics and in her wild, untamable voice; a precocious, beautiful thing that spits in the eye of conformity to thrash, buck, purr and coo at will.

Dog Days are Over is a brash opener that shows Welch has no qualms in allowing the voice to pull her hither and thither. Its smooth and graceful tones are perfectly capable of complementing a harp’s delicate disposition, but then drums burst through the door like a feral debt collector and the voice morphs into something altogether more primal. “Can you hear to horse-e-e-e-es” is bellowed in tongues to the heavens before being thrown back down again with masculine ferocity.

It’s gloriously strange, but like Kate Bush, Welch isn’t one to let eccentricity get in the way of a decent dose of pop. Dog Days is laden with gusty irresistible hooks, much like the fireworks that explode at the command of Cosmic Love’s mighty percussion and the dizzying soulful heights attained by Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up).

It’s not just the ten-gallon melodies that make Lungs wholly accessible. Although the album is riddled with oddball phrasing and clever arty references, they’re just a diversion. Welch’s troublesome muse is good old-fashioned romantic love. Lust and rejection, obsession and despair are all familiar characters in Welsh’s gothic melodramas. Howl renders her half-crazed and beast-like as she drags her teeth across the chest of her lover to taste his beating heart, whilst My Boy Builds a Coffin is a spooky ode to her man’s macabre woodworking skills.

The violence depicted by Welch mostly serves as a metaphor…mostly. Whatever she might say, Kiss With a Fist is all too literal. In civilised societies domestic violence went out of fashion around the same time as crimplene and bell-bottoms. Not here; it’s alive and politically incorrect in Welch’s plate smashing, leg-breaking, bed-burning yarn. A slapstick fight scene accompanied by a gnarly old punk riff pilfered from under Jack White’s nose.

Florence Welch is a rare find; a musician that resolutely refuses to offer a watered-down version of her flamboyant idiosyncrasies, and yet still manages to make music that could, and should, be adored be everyone. She may well benefit from a bit of restraint now and again, but with an output this dazzling, that’s something even the most uptight of Brits could forgive.

Lungs is out now through Universal. Florence and the Machine headlines Laneway Festival 2010.