Florence and the Machine: Everybody Scream
Florence Welch has always treated her albums like gateways to transformation, each one forged in the aftermath of emotional upheaval. On Everybody Scream, Florence and the Machine return with a collection that balances ecstatic release with quiet admissions of fear, revealing an artist who remains both mighty and human.
Welch has long embraced intensity as a creative force. Her sixth album once again drops listeners into a landscape shaped by turmoil, yet the music that rises from it feels sharper and more deliberate. The familiar elements are all here. Orchestral arrangements surge like incoming tides, drums crash with ritualistic force and Welch’s voice shimmers at the centre, luminous even when it trembles.
The past year left its marks on her songwriting. She has spoken candidly about the health emergency she suffered while touring Dance Fever, describing how close she came to catastrophe. That sense of bodily fragility pulses throughout Everybody Scream. In Kraken, she mourns how estranged she feels from her own form before erupting into a fierce declaration of survival. In The Old Religion, she dreams of weightlessness, craving a moment in which pain no longer dictates the boundaries of her existence.
Production from Idles’ Mark Bowen and the National’s Aaron Dessner lends the record a slightly rawer edge than its predecessors. The opening track, Everybody Scream, slips from bright harp arpeggios into a dark swell of drones as Welch celebrates the solace she finds in live performance. Drink Deep is one of the album’s boldest moments, its churning instrumentation drilling downward while Welch delivers her vocals like an invocation.
Not every ambitious idea lands with equal force. The mythic structure Welch often favours is used again here, and although it strengthens some tracks, it leaves others feeling overly familiar. The Old Religion thrives in its slow ascent from sparse piano to a fervent chorus that turns her self-reproach into something almost triumphant. You Can Have It All revisits the same contour yet lacks the same emotional spark.
The greatest surprise arrives midway through with One of the Greats, a six and a half minute whirlwind that takes its time before finally bursting open. When the guitars growl and Tom Moth’s harp threads through the climax, Welch releases a torrent of doubts and grievances: her creative anxieties, her frustration at having been defined by chaos and her irritation at watching men sail past with far weaker work. It is vivid, unfiltered and gripping.
Among an album full of flames, One of the Greats stands tallest. Its mixture of ambition and vulnerability captures the essence of Everybody Scream, an album devoted to shedding whatever cannot be carried any further. By the end, on the wild surge of Sympathy Magic, Welch sounds ready for whatever storm approaches next. “Give me everything you have,” she howls as horns bray like restless creatures. Healing may be slow, and it may come at great cost, yet Welch knows she can withstand the worst if she meets it head on.
