Florence Welch, also known by the stage name Florence + The Machine, returned this Halloween with her sixth album, “Everybody Scream.” Debuting in 2009, Florence + The Machine rose to become one of the most prominent British artists in the music industry. Filled with feminist themes, her new album is bold and unashamed, exploring grief, healing and womanhood alike.
“Everybody Scream” follows the aftermath of Welch’s life-threatening miscarriage and the internal turmoil that came in its wake. The album boasts a complicated mix of rage, quiet contemplation and empowerment. Welch celebrates her own survival and describes her retreat into nature in an effort to heal, as well as her return to the stage.
Welch’s lyrics burst with emotion and critique society and the music industry. They play with themes of life and death, witchcraft and womanhood. Welch has described “Everybody Scream” as a “horror album.” More specifically, it is a psychological horror album. The dissonance between the whimsical forest feel of the music and the grim tone of the lyrics intensifies the horror aspects.
Each song in the 12 track album stands as a strong individual work, only made better by the rest of the album. Truly, there is not a single weak song among them, as the album keeps its momentum from the beginning to the end. Even the track with the slowest pace, “Drink Deep,” holds its own alongside the rest of the album, similar to “Heavy in Your Arms” from Florence + The Machine’s debut album “Lungs.”
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The album opens with the title track, “Everybody Scream,” which follows the ending track of Florence + The Machine’s previous album. Each song plays with the themes of the others to create the rise and fall characteristics of any well-considered album. The greatest example of this is the final tracks, “You Can Have It All,” and “And Love.” The former could have easily worked as the album’s finale with a mix of power and anger, but instead, “And Love” shifts the tone one last time to end the album with peace and acceptance.
While most of the album maintains its horror focus, “Kraken” and “Sympathy Magic” take on lighter tones, which prevents the overall mood from becoming too grim. Both still use horror imagery, which maintains their connection with the rest of the album.
However, what makes “Everybody Scream” Welch’s boldest work is her confrontation of the issues many women and people assigned female at birth face, both physically and socially. “One of the Greats” criticizes the patriarchal nature of the music industry while pointing out the bitter irony of “immortality” through fame, while “Perfume and Milk” reflects Welch’s healing experience following her miscarriage. The album describes each scene in gritty detail without letting the lyrics become overly wordy, creating powerful imagery without dominating the music.
The album focuses mostly on the interplay between fame and womanhood, utilizing vivid metaphors and imagery to create impactful scenes. It grapples with a difficult reality through fantastical language and instrumentation without losing sight of its purpose. “Everybody Scream” deserves the same title as the second song in the album — “One of the Greats.”