Florence + the Machine – Everybody Scream

Indie Rock | Indie Folk

63%

 

For a time, Everybody Scream was my most anticipated album of the year. How could I not be excited, given what a tour de force the title track proved to be. An ode to the power of live music itself, the addictive electricity of being on stage and having the audience hanging on your every word. A song about feeding on a crowd’s energy like an old God drawing power from worship. The kind of track I can easily envisage becoming a fan favourite, whipping festival crowds into a frenzy, fans screaming along like an exultant coven of witches. A video full of erratic dancing akin to being possessed and speaking in tongues, with Florence as a central, magnetic presence in a blood red Wuthering Heights dress. ‘Everybody Scream’ to my mind made a statement that this would be a dark raging torrent of a record; Florence’s most gothic and feral outing to date. 

It isn’t. Frankly I’m baffled how a Florence album with such open goal song titles as ‘Witch Dance’, ‘Kraken’ and ‘The Old Religion’ can be so boring. Following immediately after the electrifying title track, the plodding and ponderous ‘One of the Greats’ gives a far better indication of what to expect from the album that follows. The arrangement feels dull and sparse. The rambling, stumbling stream of consciousness style lyrics briefly touching on a number of interesting ideas, before moving on to another tangent. It feels like a lengthy passage of text recited to simple background music, rather than a song written with structure, melody and musicality in mind. For much of the record, the tracks steer clear of the lush extravagance of earlier Florence records, struggling to form the anthemic hooks and infectious melodies we know she’s capable of, and also mostly missing the witchy vibes the album would appear to be angling towards, all in favour of instead pursuing pretty middle of the road folk arrangements. Tracks like ‘Perfume and Milk’, ‘Buckle’ and ‘Music By Men’ feel like acoustic demos yet to be fleshed out.

There are some musically interesting moments, albeit few and far between. ‘Witch Dance’ opens with a killer bass line which promptly fades away into the background. ‘The Old Religion’ boasts some superb slow burning piano balladry and one of the record’s stronger hooks, while ‘Drink Deep’ has a menacing tribal vibe that uses its percussion and choral elements to great effect, like a chant from some ancient ritual. Beyond that, the record doesn’t really speak to me, which is a shame given how much it has to say. Drawing inspiration from a near death experience during childbirth, there’s a lot to process here. Beyond ruminating on loss and lingering on fears of her own mortality, it also sees Florence wonder on what legacy she would leave behind, how much an artist sacrifices for their art, as well as taking aim at sexism in the music industry. There are moments – like the aforementioned ‘One of the Greats’, which tries to tackle every topic together – where the writing can feel a little clunky, yet equally there are flashes of some of Florence’s best lyricism to date. ‘Perfume and Milk’ and ‘Drink Deep’ are pure poetry, weaving a rich and vivid folklore all her own, while ‘Witch Dance’ visualises her own traumatic ordeal as a fleeting intimate encounter with death itself. 

I’m part of the generation of children that was lured to the cinema to watch the film Bridge to Terabithia under false pretences. The trailers painted it as a fun fantasy adventure film, full of monsters and magic, when in reality it was a very human and grounded drama about loss and grief. It explores those themes very well, and will have you sobbing by the end, and had I stumbled upon it unseen later in life I might have enjoyed it more for what it is. However, being drawn in by a trailer which focuses entirely on the tangential fantasy elements, which make up all of five minutes of screen time, completely sours the experience. I have similar issues with how I arrived at Everybody Scream. I think these tracks would carry a lot more weight and power had the album been presented as Florence’s most personal and stripped back release from the outset, purposefully eschewing big hooks and grand arrangements in favour of something more real and messy. Arriving here having been lured in by the promise of something dark, feral and witchy, just set me up for disappointment from the start.