FEATURE:
Everybody Screaming…and With Good Reason!
ALL PHOTOS: Autumn de Wilde
Why Florence + The Machine Could Deliver the Album of the Year
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EVERY year delivers…
an album that seems to define the time. That year and its mood. Charli xcx did that in 2024 with BRAT. It seemed to arrive at a particular moment when we needed an album like that. Something that took Pop to new places and united people. Perhaps the soundtrack of the summer, it is still impacting people today. Such an incredible album. This year’s defining album is perhaps going to come on 31st October. An autumn masterpiece that I think has this sense of catharsis and drama. Beauty and something seductive. Florence + The Machine’s Everybody Scream is very much going to be up there with the absolute best albums oc this year. The title track has just been released and reception has been understandably ecstatic. I will come to that. Some people vibing to its epic and spine-tingling wonder. Something sexual and enticing in the song. Others highlighting how it is very much Florence + The Machine but on a new level. One of the things I hate about the hype and attention around the group is a word/term I have attacked and called out a few times. The ‘return’. The band coming back with this album. The fact is, as I often say, artists that do release afters after a year or two are not ‘returning’. They are continuing their career. Florence + The Machine released Dance Fever in 2022. Only three years ago, they have not gone away, retired or stopped. They have been playing gigs and active, so it seems somewhat odd and pressuring to say they are making a return. In any case, the group’s sixth studio album could very well be their best-received. There was this tantalising teaser and clip where their lead, Florence Welch, could be seen in a very picturesque and peaceful field aggressively digging into the dirt and then screaming into the hole. Not only is it a powerful and memorable visual. It also seems like her screaming at the world. The state of the world. Something so many of us can relate to!
I think that is why Everybody Scream will resonate and prove hugely popular. The promotional images and videos for the album are shot by Autumn de Wilde. It is a fantastic and natural collaboration. Everybody Scream garnered some incredible reaction. This feeling that Florence + The Machine are about to give us the album of the year. Not only that. A group hitting a peak so many years after their formation. Or hitting a new high. It is inspiring to other artists. I am going to start with an article from NME, who provides some backdrop to Everybody Scream:
“The song arrives after Florence Welch took to social media yesterday (August 19) to confirm the details of a sixth album. Set for release on October 31, it follows on from the 2022 album ‘Dance Fever’, and is said to be inspired by mysticism and witchcraft.
Inspiration for the record stems from singer Welch undergoing lifesaving surgery during the ‘Dance Fever Tour’ and starting to look into spiritual mysticism and folk horror – understanding the limits of her body and questioning what it means to be “healed”.
These are themes that helped shape the record, along with exploration of womanhood, partnership, aging, and dying. All songs were written and produced by Welch over the past two years, and contributions to the LP come from IDLES’ Mark Bowen, Mitski, and The National’s Aaron Dessner.
Today (August 20) sees the release of the title track and an accompanying music video directed by Autumn de Wilde and featuring Bowen.
The album will comprise 12 songs and is available to pre-order here. There will also be ‘Chamber Versions’ of CD and vinyl editions which contain four bonus tracks, and a ‘Bloodwood Edition’ of the cassette, which features a different cover.
Speculation about a new Florence + The Machine album got momentum last month, when the singer hinted at new material on Instagram.
One of the photos in her post showed a whiteboard reading: “You can have it all,” before listing off “Clarity, power, purpose, vocals, space, dynamics and beauty”. Flo also mentioned “Witchcraft, folk horror, mysticism, magic, poetry [and] insanity” in the post, and shared a photograph of Simon Critchley’s 2024 book, On Mysticism.
Earlier this year, the group celebrated the 10th anniversary of ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’. That was their third record, arriving after their 2009 debut ‘Lungs’ and 2011’s sophomore release ‘Ceremonials’. It was followed by 2018’s ‘High As Hope’”.
Apart from, depressingly and invariably, every review staying Florence + The Machine are ‘back’ or ‘returned’ – because three years is practically like giving up on music and going into hiding! Or the suggestion their previous work was inferior -, there is this consensus that the opening track from their upcoming album is already one of the singles of the year. Far Out Magazine shared their take on the extraordinary Everybody Scream:
“When Florence and the Machine announced that her new album, Everybody Scream, was set to be released on October 31st, fans could already guess what direction she was taking. On the titular track, Florence Welch takes a bite of the poison apple and welcomes the listener into a world that is dark, broody, and outrageously seductive.
The song comes a week after the ‘You’ve Got the Love’ singer posted an unsettling video of herself to social media, in which she was depicted frantically digging a hole in the ground and screaming into it. It’s not a stretch to say that what could be heard on the other side of the abyss might sound something just like ‘Everybody Scream’.
Apt for the album opener, it begins with a mythical, jangly synth, and cult-like vocables flexing Welch’s incredible vocal timbre and range. Soon, a heavy drum kicks in, and things take a turn for the weird. The beat pushes forward, dangerous and inviting.
In the pre-chorus breakdown, Welch commands the listener to dance, sing, move, and scream. She is in full control. Here, in the gothic-inspired music video directed by Autum de Wild and featuring Mark Bowen of Idles, the singer-songwriter parties and dances with ghosts and ghouls, dressed all in red. The track is produced expertly and plays with darker, heavier influences, most notable in the dipping guitar riff that unravels into the chorus.
After five studio albums, Welch’s attack on the demands of the industry comes to the forefront in the racing track. She details the parasocial relations of those “breathless, begging and screaming my name” as Welch bursts through the ceiling. She muses on the expectation to be “extraordinarily normal at the same time.”
As always, Welch deftly depicts a painful world in which she has no choice but to partake. This time, however, it seems Welch is conjuring the spell.
The track leans even further into ghoulish mysticism for an eerie, if abrupt, ending. “So witchcraft, the medicine, the spells and the injections / the harvest, the needle protect me from evil / the magic and the misery, madness and the mystery / Oh, what has it done to me?”
Welch might be ruined by the necessary evil she must excavate from within to make music as enchanting and addictive as ‘Everybody Scream’, but the listener is certainly all the better for it”.
There is so much in this one song! It may reflect the rest of the album in terms of tone and themes. Welch hitting out at those who judge her or have these double standards. Expecting women in music to be exceptional or overlooking those who are not, but then criticising those they see as too weird or wild. The spellbinding imagery and this gothic feel to the song. The fact it is a slightly new direction. Florence Welch’s voice at its peak. So strong and commanding. It is a bewitching and epic song that is so powerful and moving. I don’t think it will be a red herring in terms of the quality and effect. I do feel the whole album will be this incredible. Seeing Everybody Scream performed live and these songs reaching the fans in such a direct and physical way will be something to witness! We will know more about the album and its origins when there are promotional interviews. At the moment, we have this first single and new taste of Florence + The Machine’s sixth studio album. One that is not as comeback or a return. Instead, it is them moving on and releasing a new album that I think they will be involved with for another year or so - in terms of the touring demands. I think that Everybody Scream will be voted as this year’s best album. I am curious to hear what Florence Welch says when we get to read her insights in interviews. On 31st October, this amazing and potentially year-defining album arrives. If you are a major fan of the group or not, this is one that you will want to own! I genuinely feel it will define this year. It is going to be both personal and universal. One that is meaningful and true to Florence Welch, yet its themes, words and energy is going to be taken to heart by so many people. Seeing the social media reaction and how excited people are by Everybody Scream is heartening. At a time when we need music more than ever to life and bring us together, it is a perfect moment to spotlight a song and band that has…
GOT so many people talking.