Florence Welch turns frustration into a cry of love
Florence Welch And Isabella Summers – previously Florence Robot & Isa Machine – they gave life to Florence + The Machine in 2007. The band's first album, “Lungs”, was published in 2009 and achieved immediate success, first place in the charts, in Great Britain. To date the group has released five albums, the last of these, “Dance fever”was released two years ago, on May 13, 2022. What you can read in the lines below is the review of the album written for us by Michele Boroni.
Florence + The Machine, and in particular the singer and leader Florence Welch, represents a unicum in today's pop rock panorama, suspended between contemporary sounds and references to the medieval and Renaissance world, post-pandemic lyrics and gothic fairy tales, 80s sounds and themes feminists. This latest album “Dance Fever” returns to represent them completely, after the previous “High as Hope” from 2018 which was highly commercially successful but in which they evidently were not at ease.
On this occasion, Florence & The Machine have called their favorite producer for female vocals, namely Jack Antonoff (St. Vincent, Lorde, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey) and Jack Bayley of Glass Animals, authentic hitmakers, however it seems that it is Florence to lead the dances. The album opens with “King” with Welch abandoning the female role of mother and freeing herself with a chorus of exultation, towards a triumphal orchestral atmosphere, which continues in the following “Free” more in an electro pop key with cascades of synths.
They are all songs that conquer on record and we imagine they can galvanize the audience in their live version. “Choreomania” is perhaps the piece that guides the whole album and also explains the title: choreomania was in fact a medieval practice in which thousands of people danced together until they were exhausted, a sort of Northern European St. Vitus Dance. Obviously here extreme dance is a metaphor full of interpretations and meanings such as that of freeing one's demons or setting new dynamics in motion “You say that rock and roll is dead / but is it only because it hasn't been resurrected in your image and likeness? / As if Jesus were returning / But with a beautiful dress” sings Florence in one of the many phrases with poetic feminism effect scattered throughout the album.
Perhaps this is the most Florence + The Machine album of Florence + The Machine, with a band that spins like crazy, a decidedly recognizable sound and a Florence who spares no effort both in singing and when tackling her role as singer and her strength to continue (“And after every tour, I swear I could say / It's over guys, now it's over / But the call always comes / And it sounds like children / Begging to be born” he sings in the final “Morning Elvis”).
It's a record that plays on many layers, as we were saying: there's the folk almost à la Joni Mitchell (“Girl Against God”), and the overload of percussion and groove (“Daffodil”) up until the single “My Love”. ” which follows the wave that brought the band to success with the very successful cover of “You've Got The Love“. Also in this piece the confusion and frustration of these days is transformed into a cry of love.
