The rubric way connected “Everybody Scream,” the caller medium by Florence and the Machine, opens with a synth organ layered implicit an eerie choral harmony. In the video, directed by Autumn de Wilde, Florence Welch stands connected a debased signifier successful a sixteenth-century manor location with a assemblage of people—old men successful suits, women successful achromatic gowns—convulsing astir her, arsenic if she is starring a wide exorcism. A coven of witches successful achromatic blouses and agelong skirts leap onto tables, eyes bulging and teeth bared. Welch, who is wearing a crimson-red formal and matching heels, spits flowers onto a antheral arsenic she writhes implicit him. Somehow, it works.
Known for her reddish hair, bohemian dress, and pagan-inspired lyrics, Welch has brought gothic fanfare to popular euphony for astir 2 decades. In her songs, she regularly communes with demons, ghosts, and devils. She has described her unrecorded performances arsenic an “agnostic church.” Her dependable is her astir almighty weapon, sonorous and ethereal arsenic she dances astir cavernous stages. For her erstwhile album, “Dance Fever,” she drew inspiration from Pre-Raphaelite art, medieval choreomania, and the stories of Carmen Maria Machado, crafting a satellite of bittersweet enchantment. But if her past grounds was a fairy tale, she told KROQ, “This one’s conscionable a fearfulness film.”
During the songwriting process, she steeped herself successful the fearfulness canon, studying occultism astatine the Warburg Institute and speechmaking books specified arsenic Rob Young’s “Electric Eden,” which traces however British people euphony successful the sixties and seventies began to transverse implicit with mysticism. “Doing the enactment and sleeping alone / downloading Revelations of Divine Love connected my phone,” she sings wryly, connected “Perfume and Milk.” There was an endearing campy to the rollout of “Everyone Scream,” which was released connected Halloween: the teaser trailer, which was besides directed by de Wilde, shows Welch yelling similar a last miss into a heavy hole. She adjacent took screaming lessons to prepare. Welch has ever brought musical-theatre instincts to her work, but these witchy references consciousness peculiarly good suited to an medium that charts the sacrifices that she has made to person her enactment taken seriously. “Here I don’t person to beryllium quiet / Here I don’t person to beryllium kind, extraordinary, mean each astatine the aforesaid time,” Welch sings, of the powerfulness she finds portion performing, connected “Everybody Scream.” “But look astatine maine tally myself ragged, humor connected the stage / But however tin I permission you erstwhile you’re screaming my name?”
On “One of the Greats,” which Welch wrote portion touring “Dance Fever,” we find the creator recovering from the benignant of electrical show described successful the opening track. She imagines herself buried underground and past raised backmost to beingness to support making music. It whitethorn beryllium 1 of Welch’s champion songs successful years—the benignant of glorious dilatory pain connected which she made her name. She recorded it successful a single, six-minute take, with Mark Bowen, of the set Idles; during production, Ethel Cain added backing vocals. (Welch’s different collaborators connected the medium see Mitski and Aaron Dessner, of the National.) She sings astir being burnt out, astatine lone thirty-six:
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