On Everybody Scream, Florence Welch is at her best

Into this zeitgeist lands the sixth album by Florence + the Machine. Florence Welch is already something of a millennial Wiccan recruitment officer, and this record arrived on Halloween, brandishing spooky season themes and gleefully dialling up the witchiness of her work, often with tongue in cheek. There are tracks called Witch Dance and The Old Religion; two songs already released – Sympathy Magic and the title track – come with videos set on windswept moors, revelling in references to Brontë and Kate Bush. There are echoes of Welch’s last album, Dance Fever, in callbacks to ideas of possession and catharsis.

But for all this surface theatricality, the record is profound. It represents an intentional turning inwards, as well as a reaching out to fellow travellers. “So this one’s for the ladies,” Welch sings wearily, on One of the Greats – a tremendously ambivalent song about how a male-leaning set of values so often dominates discussions of musical worth.

Everybody Scream harnesses deep reserves of feminine energy. It starts in the lungs. Two choirs accompany Welch’s own muscular set of bellows, strengthened by opera training. Screams recur, both suppressed and expressed, in the lyrics, the backing vocals and in the sound design. Another great songwriter, Mitski, takes a co-writing credit on one the record’s most anguished songs, Buckle. (A few chaps are on board here as well: producers Aaron Dessner and Danny L Harle, plus Idles guitarist Mark Bowen).

The body is a recurring concern. Welch recently revealed that she suffered a miscarriage from a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy during her last tour. Losses and wounds, healed and unhealed, figure. There are traces of body horror and shape-shifting transformations, as Welch fantasises about growing larger and more powerful. On Kraken, Welch becomes a sea monster, taking epic revenge on someone who didn’t “see” her.

“There’s nobody more monstrous than me,” she concludes on the primal, rhythmic Witch Dance. But another dance is going on here too, between power and powerlessness. On You Can Have It All, Welch moves furniture around, seeking a small measure of control over her life. Witchcraft doesn’t really work, of course – Lana Del Rey’s hex on Trump certainly didn’t stop him – but it supplies succour through ritual, intentionality and sisterhood.

The veil between worlds is wafer thin on these song. A number of tracks find Welch venturing beyond. On the riveting horror tale Drink Deep, Welch sets off to find the “hidden folk”. Accepting hospitality in the land of faerie is a rookie error, but she drinks deep nonetheless, only to find herself stuck there for years, consuming her own suffering. Witch Dance finds Welch tearing off her night clothes and running wild through a mythical landscape, seeking direction.

On Kraken, Florence gives a shout out to “all of my peers that had such potential, the swamp it took them down”. Having collaborated with Taylor Swift on the excellent Florida!!! on The Tortured Poets Department (2024) it tallies that sometimes Everybody Scream, in its most tender parts, feel likes a Halloween version of Swift’s recent record, The Life of a Showgirl. Both records grapple with the loneliness of the spotlight and the trading of normality for transcendence. Female entertainers often find themselves in the same situations. The irony of being loved by thousands but not by the toxic dude who is ghosting you is a pang acutely felt on the magnificent Buckle.

Many modern women struggle as career demands rub up against the desire for a family life, whatever shape that takes. Steeped in pain, You Can Have It All ends with bitter crescendo. The most exhilarating vocal performance, though, comes on Drink Deep, where Welch’s voice wanders into minor keys and eastern scales, faintly recalling Grace Slick on Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit.

It has been a big year for highly personal albums about pain; here, another female artist channels her own anguish for public consumption. But it does more than that, of course. This is alchemy, in which something terrible can be turned into acclaim, validation and money to live off (and pay therapists). But then – as Welch muses acerbically on One of the Greats – “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music, just because you can.”