Type the letters ''f'', ''l'' and ''o'' into Google Australia and the second item the search engine guesses you are looking up is Florence and the Machine. The first suggestion, curiously, is ''flower power'' but the indie-pop project of 23-year-old Londoner Florence Welch beats flowers, American MC Flo Rida and floods to second place.

''I never, ever Google myself,'' Welch says, not entirely convincingly. ''But I'm bigger than flowers? My God.''

Her tongue is firmly in her cheek when she says this - and it needs to be, given the number of people Welch appears to rub the wrong way. People seem to love or hate the flamboyant redhead, as much for reasons beyond her control than those within it. This, after all, is a woman who was championed by the BBC and who won the British equivalent of an ARIA based on a couple of early singles.

''Well, I mean, I was confused about it as well,'' Welch says. ''It's a kind of strange thing, isn't it? It's like I've turned up, accepting this award and, you know, I haven't done anything yet. It's like, 'We hope you make a good album.' ''

Luckily for Welch, her debut, Lungs, turned out pretty well, despite the punky and punchy (no pun intended) early single Kiss With a Fist proving something of a red herring. Lungs is a rousing collection but it's driven more by lush harp and pretty piano than cool, spiky guitar riffs and its creator owes as much to Kate Bush as the feisty likes of Patti Smith. Perhaps Welch's Bush-style theatrics when she's performing put people off?

''Um, I don't know,'' she says. ''I mean, it's not like I'm planning stuff on stage … I don't really know what to do on stage. I really enjoy singing, that's the thing. I find it quite an emotional experience, I get quite excitable over music. I do feel music and I feel things very strongly from the songs. And so that's just the way I do things. Y'know, maybe that doesn't come across to some people. I don't know.''

Some listeners have also been up in arms about lines such as ''a kiss with a fist is better than none''.''Yeah, that was strange,'' the singer says. ''I mean, the lyrics are violent but … there's no victims. It's about the imagery, y'know, and it's about the kind of sense of abandonment and chaos that I wanted to create.''

With Welch being so regularly misunderstood, it's no wonder there's a melancholic feel to many of her songs. ''I like the kind of juxtaposition of something maybe slightly uncomfortable mixed with a melody, you know? It's kind of interesting to me that someone might be singing a catchy tune but perhaps not even realising what they're singing along to. They might be singing something quite dark. My dad's always saying, 'Why can't you write a happy song?' I'm like, 'What? 'Dog Days Are Over' is quite happy.' And he's like, 'Happiness, bullet in the back. that's not exactly a positive lyric.' And I'm like, 'Well, I don't know.' It's just kind of what I write - I think there can be beauty in dark things.''

Welch devised several acronyms for the album title - among them Love Unrequited Never Gets Saved and Living Under New Great Sadness - and also confesses that she ''actually got really obsessed with Twilight for a while, I got quite into the books''. Add this to her love of ''beauty in dark things'' and it sounds like she may be something of a - whisper it - goth.

''I kind of might be,'' Welch says. ''I definitely have gothic tendencies. I wear a lot of black - I was more of a sort of skate-punk, though, when I was 11. Maybe I'm going through a sort of late goth phase.''

George Palathingal

FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE - AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES 2010

Jan 29 - Laneway Festival Brisbane
Jan 30 - Laneway Festival Melbourne
Jan 31 - Laneway Festival Sydney
Feb 3 - The Palace Melbourne
Feb 5 - Laneway Festival Adelaide
Feb 6 - Laneway Festival Perth