During his acceptance speech for best actor at this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, Timothée Chalamet made known his desire to be remembered as “one of the greats.” A few years earlier, Chalamet starred in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of “Little Women,” in which his character demonstratively asks his future wife, “What women are allowed into the club of geniuses, anyway?”
“Everybody Scream,” Florence + the Machine’s sixth album, is a response to that familiar, gendered notion. Across its 12 tracks, Florence Welch contends with both her desire for greatness and the constraints she understands to have been put on her as a female artist.
It’s unclear if Welch had Chalamet’s viral speech in mind when writing, “One of the Greats,” the album’s lead single. But what is apparent in her brooding feminist treatise are grievances about sexism and male entitlement. “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can,” she belts over gothic synths and strings. But it’s a bit funny, too: “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan, you’re my second favorite frontman.”
Welch collaborated with Mark Bowen of IDLES for much of the record, as well as Mitski and Aaron Dessner of The National. Sometimes the collaborations create a haunting sound, but most of “Everybody Scream” is packed with the band’s signature orchestral pop, an ornate arrangement of strings, synths, guitars, pianos and percussion.
Perhaps to a fault, “Everybody Scream” isn’t sonically dissimilar from what fans of Florence + the Machine have come to expect. But in a lyrical shift, Welch meditates heavily on mysticism and witchcraft throughout, something she turned to after suffering a nearly fatal ectopic pregnancy in 2023. The 39-year-old later revealed that she performed with a burst fallopian tube during her last tour and had to undergo emergency surgery.
“I sit in salt water/Call in a vision of my daughter/Light a candle/Place my grief upon the altar,” her voice vibrates over haunting background vocals and an eerie electric guitar on “You Can Have It All.”
The record is reminiscent of Halsey’s 2021 concept album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” where femininity and motherhood are juxtaposed with influence, respect and violence.
There’s a similar rawness to Welch’s poetry, as she grapples with mortality and ambition. But, like life, it’s also accompanied by the mundane. “Downloading ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ on my phone/Trying to read but getting distracted/Trying to live but feeling so damaged,” she sings on “Perfume and Milk,” one of the more austere songs on the album.
As a concept, “Everybody Scream” is stellar. There’s a sonic and thematic unity to the album and its Halloween release makes perfect sense.
“Everybody Scream,” by Florence + the Machine
Three and a half stars out of five.
On repeat: “Sympathy Magic” and “Witch Dance”
For fans of: witchy women, spooky season, second-wave feminism
