Florence + The Machine // Everybody Scream
A deeply intimate exploration of resilience
★★★★☆ (4/5)
The Album Artwork
Indie rock legends Florence + The Machine return with their sixth album in the form of “Everybody Scream”. Hailed as one of the band's most deeply personal records, it was created in the face of life-threatening uncertainty. Frontwoman Florence Welch endured a near-death experience following an ectopic pregnancy in 2023, which forced her to undergo emergency surgery while on tour. From that trauma, a palpable pain and tension manifest in the music from this new album.
On opening title track “Everybody Scream”, Welch breaks down the pitfalls of fame and life in the spotlight, along with the toxic relationship that fame builds with performers.
Across the album, a cohesive sound that will be familiar to longtime fans strikes a theatrical and atmospheric sound as strings, chimes and the captivating vocals of Welch sound primal as ever. Her vocal power shines as she wrestles with verbose verbage that suits the soundscape and diary-entry style.
As fitting for such an introspective album, various prominent themes are woven into the songs. From the cost of ambition and toll of performance to emotional resilience and loss, the lyrical content exhibited feels very real. Across its lyrical content, the album prioritises rawness and emotional catharsis.
Overdriven guitars dramatically herald “One of the Greats”, which furthers the themes exploring the emotional cost of becoming an international icon. Welch evokes a dusty western through the songs' sombre stomp as she dissects how her artistry is judged through a gendered lens.
Musically, “Everybody Scream” attempts to match lush and layered instrumentation with rustic inspirations, drawing from a wide collection of folk-rock, baroque pop and electronic textures. When firing on all cylinders, the production is operatic, with stormy crescendos and eerie silences that mirror the emotional turbulence within the songs, however this lofty ambition misfires on some tracks and leaves them lacking an identity.
The vulnerable “Music by Men” stokes one of the most intimate tracks on the album as it explores various states of emotional turmoil. Examining the gender based expectations placed on female artists, Welch questions the cost of ambition and the toll of performance, singing, “Let me put out a record and not have it ruin my life” with a weariness that weighs heavily across the whole album.
Less a sanitised montage of putting on a brave face, “Everybody Scream” instead paints a much more human picture of world-weary resilience, and shows a band that continues to stand their ground in the face of the marching years. Undoubtedly raw, the album serves as a surprisingly revealing look behind the curtain of international superstardom while navigating life’s pitfalls.
Stream the new album: Here
Review By: Sam McNaughton
