Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Florence Welch Dancing around a stage in a storm, out in the elements, with hundreds of fans screaming for her. So far, totally normal. However, a few hours earlier, she had started bleeding heavily; Her doctor told her she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage. Later, in the hospital, it was discovered that her fallopian tube had burst and she had “the equivalent of a Coke can of blood” in her stomach.
That experience (as he recounted in a recent interview Guardian: “The closer I came to creating life, the closer I came to death”) Florence and the Machinesixth album ofeverybody scream. It arrives on Halloween, packed with all the spellbinding details, ritual sacrifices and gleeful chants you might expect from Welch.
The title track and album opener “Everybody Scream” begins with a flurry of keys on Hammond organ, and synths shimmering and swirling around Welch’s otherworldly calls. Drums are played, and the flute is also played. As Welch wrestles with her role as artist, the Banshees scream in unison, symbolizing fame: “I break down, get up, do it all again / ‘Cause it’s never enough and she makes me feel loved.” On stage, she feels free, almost dangerously so (“Here I can take over the whole sky/Blow up, become my full form”). Welch’s voice rises like flames on a pyre, all-devouring.
By now, anyone is familiar with Florence and the Machine – whether from their brilliant 2009 debut lungs, Or 2022’s pop and disco influenced dance fever – discover how their gorgeous sound meets songwriting tinged with femininity, passion, madness and mysticism. everybody scream enhances the latter, perhaps aided by Welch’s actual near-death experience. Everything on this record sounds more focused than anything he’s done before. Those common themes are based on her situation as a now famous (female) musician and a woman in her late thirties, broken and regenerated by such a violent, certainly traumatic experience.
She gets away from her would-be captors in “Sympathy Magic”, which is as wild as Kathy’s run through the swamp. “I don’t try to be good anymore/It doesn’t keep me safe/Just like you told me it would,” she sings over the thunderous sound of drums and blowing horns invoking autumn. Her vivid imagination comes to the fore again and again: in “You Can Have It All”, she stifles a scream, “And out of it grew a bright red tree / Shining with jagged leaves”. She creates a witch’s brew on “perfume and milk”, imagining herself as Circe in the woods – a study in solitude as the world revolves around her.
Mark Bowen of the band IDLES helps give the indie-rock sensibility to songs like “Music by Men”. It plays on acoustic guitar and soft piano notes, as Welch narrates about the ride home from couples therapy (“I squirm in my seat so as not to threaten you”). She seems to take aim at men who receive praise for being in a rock band: “Hearing a song by The 1975 I thought ‘This is bullshit’/ I might as well try music by men… Let me make a record and not let it ruin my life.” There is a palpable frustration with the double standards of the music industry: Welch explores the deepest darkest parts of herself and writes them into her art, but she faces indifference from critics who idolize her male peers.
This boiling rage is never more evident than in the carefully controlled “One of the Greats.” “I tried my best, tried to impress, my childhood dream came true,” she sings in a Patti Smith drawl over (meta, mocking) squeezy electric riffs. “And my dresses and my blossoming sadness, like a woman profiting from her madness.” Later, she muses about an anonymous rock singer: “It would be nice to be a man and make boring music because you can do that / Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan / You’re my second favorite frontman / And if you weren’t so afraid of me you could have me.” But dance feverAs “King”, he highlights his dilemma of having to choose between art and starting a family. everybody scream It feels as if she is venting her anger at being forced to make any choice.
That this album will come after a week Lily Allen’s amazing comeback record, west end girl, Looks like behave definitely, not cheat. They are completely different tasks, and yet both come out in similar ways. There is an exorcism of what was, and what is. But in the end, we hear that both actors are reaching some point of agreement, or hoping for one. “Peace is coming,” Welch promised over the waves of the harp as “And Love” comes to a close, repeating it like an incantation. “Peace is coming.” Consider us fascinated.