There's a simple word to describe the album Dance Fever by Florence and the Machine. Better. This album is more finely balanced, more artistically rich, and has such a great flow, from start to finish that I would go to say its the best work produced by Florence.
So far. What will the future bring? That isn't really a question the album asks, but rather, an answer to "What did the future-past bring?"
Released in 2022, Dance Fever is the first, and at the time of writing, only pillar of Welch's creative output as a full length album post-pandemic. It isn't perfect. There's messy, confusing bits. There's lovely bits.
There's a lot of "stuff" packed into this album, like a fresh couch pillow: it will take decades to wear down. But it is instantly comfortable, and refreshingly intelligent. It is all brilliant, in its own way.
While widely circulated that the album's title is a reference to choreomania (erratic group dancing) - Dance Fever is such a great name for an album in a "post-pandemic" world where viral infections still rage.
KING
Opening with an anthem is very Florence Welch. It doesn't feel like it starts that way, however. Starting with a creative conundrum "the very thing you're best at is the thing that hurts the most"; following down to the seemingly constant assertion in society that an Artist needs needs pain to flourish.
This song has very much inspired me, a lot; over the last few years, not only due to its bold, powerful imagery, but due to its layers of meaning. It moves too quickly to keep up with in real time, as I type this; but the central thesis (and the chorus):
I need my golden crown of sorrow
My bloody sword to swing
My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology
I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king
And thus, the title emerges as an additional clue, and the constant self doubt of the act of creation - not just the creation of art, artefact, but the creation of a self identity, a kingdom in which we alone roam - our own minds.
Then, too - weaving back to a thread starting earlier in the song, there's something here about gender, not only King, but "a woman is a changeling, always shifting shape / just when you think you have it figured out / something new begins to take" -
This is the paradox of creativity, too, at least the creativity that roams in my mind. Anyway, that's way too many words for a single track, and this is a long album. Time to move on, or forever get lost in the throne room of this album's opulent castle. Four minutes and forty one seconds of castle, that is.
FREE
If King is a prison where creativity thrashes against the walls, then Free is meant to let it out, no? Well, not really - because it opens with a disco beat, and the need to temper and moderate the fire that rages within.
Sometimes, I wonder if I should be medicated
If I would feel better just lightly sedated
I am quickly learning that this album is a masterpiece, two songs in, as it progresses rapidly into self-awareness, and the notion that escape from one's creative force, from one's spiralling thoughts is perhaps impossible - but why? And what is it that you're running from, Flo?
I'm always running from something
I push it back, but it keeps on coming
And being clever never got me very far
And, of course, here begins the self reference to the album title, dancing as a form of freedom, and a mantra, song with joy, and somehow, the irony of a howling, mournful backing track, I am free.
CHOREOMANIA
A complex background melody, syncopated percussion, but such clear, powerful vocals cut through the introduction to this track. Then the bass guitar enters and:
This is the end
But it isn't - it is just the start of a complex musical transformation. This song feels like four or five seperate parts, beyond an introduction, a middle and an end. There's conflict, there is crescendo, and there is dancing, and chaos.
This song tries to preach that when all else is lost, dancing yourself to death may not be such a bad idea - and to be part of a throng, but to still be an individual on the verge of collapse, might just be fine.
BACK IN TOWN
There hasn't been a single bad song on this album so far. Back in Town doesn't break that trend, but it is the first lull in the beating drums, and a return to a quiet moment in the temple. Only the temple is the city, and the dreary walk of shame back to the familiar.
The music takes the backseat in this song, with the vocals carrying a strong narrative, backed only with the light plucking of strings, and an swooping, slow choir of one. Layers. Then there's what the lyrics actually say.
I thought that I was here with you
But it was always just that empty room
This comes only after the tormented build up of a hang over, a "big city baptism" (of being spat upon) - a diner, dirty streets, and torture. Of observation of all our dreams / pile up on the streets.
So many items thrown to the curb - people's ideas manifest in their refuse - somehow, making even the urban landscape of garbage day a place to find inspiration. What a beautiful song.
GIRLS AGAINST GOD
And then it gets better. So much better. Lyrically, this album is potent and powerful, and speaks to my own insecurities in such a reassuring way, letting me know that it is okay to sometimes not be okay, to not be balanced as an emotional human being.
This is a song about reflection, self pity, but also, of fury. Of distrust in the affection that others place upon the self. What a thing to admit / That when someone looks at me with real love /I don't like it very much.
The inability to accept affection - and to know whether it is genuine, or has an ulterior motive weaves through this song. Toleration does, too, until the beautiful, subdued chorus, full of contradictions and empowerment.
Oh, its good to be alive
Crying into cereal at midnight
And if they ever let me out
I'm gonna really let it out
Before the song ends with maniacal laughter and threatening footsteps. And a brief lullaby.
Dream Girl Evil
This is a jazzy song. A four-four beat. Yet, it wouldn't sound out of place in a chapel, or a church. Easy lyrics, and a driving chant, of its title at its core, before it devolves into questions as threats.
To me, this is a song about the male gaze, and I might be very wrong, but how that male gaze is, from a woman's perspective, always ending in the bedroom, as opposed to some intellectual stratosphere.
Am I your dream girl? / You Think of my in bed / But you could never hold me / You liked me better in your head
This is a complex song, and I'm unsure why I thought to bring gender into my interpretation of the lyrics - it is a light anthem, and one that I struggle to interpret and understand. It confuses me a little.
Prayer Factory
A really quick, short song. It feels like an extension of the prior track. A conclusion, but it is an interlude. Nine lines with incredible power, before we move into quite possibly my favourite track on the album.
Cassandra
I have written about this song so much. Cassandra is a song about the prophet. She tells the future, but no one believes her, because she wouldn't "put out" for the God who gave her that gift.
Now she's a husk, a crone, and there's a plague. Perhaps, a Dance Fever? they put crosses on the doors to try and keep me out. Maybe she's a vampire, too?
But this is a beautiful song about the oppression of logic. Of the removal of voices in society and of the great decay of beauty in the face of surveillance and capitalism.
All among a tinkling harp, bells, and a lush musical landscape. If you are going to listen to one song on this album, let it be this one. It has a similar narrative structure to 100 Years from the prior album, and that's not a bad thing.
This song builds and builds, crescendo after crescendo - then it is over.
Heaven is Here
This is a return to Ceremonials style music. Big. Bombastic. Trilling vocals that could just as well be birds, but a driving percussion, and atmosphere that is more at place at a camp fire in the forest, or before the burning ruins of a cathedral.
This is a violent song, not only due to its lyrics, but also its atmospherics. Short, sweet, and so very sharp.
Daffodil
This may as well be a continuation of Ceremonials, too, but this brings a lot of more polish - more of a driving beat, higher notes, dangerously threatening to emerge beyond Florence's impressive vocal range.
It stays smooth, seductive. Full of memory and ritual. Of hope, and still, of self doubt - and of the suffering we know yet not. But of still being able to see the hope in things, and the minor details that do matter ever so much, just like the flower the song is named for.
I never thought it would get this far
This somewhat drunken joke
Sometimes, I see so much beauty
I don't think that I can cope
Look at the little things and cherish them. But look at the big things, too.
My Love
This is a disco song, until you hear the poem version of it, then - then... it is an absolute tear jerker. Really, I don't mince words. My eyes welled with tears the first time I heard the poem reading of the track, and now, each time I hear the "song" version, I think "what an irony for this to be so upbeat, in a major key, and happy."
But it really isn't. To me, this is the most iconic song of the album, in reference to the title. It's about plague and pestilence, and not having an outlet, but also, of not knowing what can come next.
The insight to the creative process is absolutely lovely too as the song opens:
I was always able to write my way out
Song always made sense to me
Now I find that when I look down
Every page is empty
The biggest death a creator can live, most likely - beyond their work not being appreciated. It makes me angry that this is the opening to a disco anthem, but at the same time, it must bring attention to people somehow.
So tell me where to put my love
Do I wait for time to do what it does
I don't know where to put my love
This, to me feels like burying a body. With something, some one, gone - where does that excess delta of love flow? It is heart achingly delivered in the poem version of this, but just crashes over the barriers in the song - a question, as opposed to a lamentation.
But then it goes on - about how the Pandemic , and all of the apocalyptic visions of people in encounter suits, of homes being prison cells, and the quietness of it all. No cracking open of heaven / But Quiet and still / My friends are getting ill.
Of gathering ceasing, of, even for people uncomfortable to affection, and uncomfortable to the crowd, of that quiet discomfort at not having that familiar discomfort. An interpretation only, but:
My arms emptied
The skies emptied
The buildings emptied
Except the hospitals and the morgues of London. They were busier than ever.
Restraint
Another very short interlude, barely a song, a response to perhaps, a song on the prior album. And have I learned restraint? Am I quiet enough for you yet? - possibly something about ruining a birthday - for those who have been following this series of analysis closely.
The Bomb
It starts with a sigh. This is a beautiful, poignant song, but I want to it be about literally anything else. From a mournful barrage of sweetly, soothingly delivered lines about unrequited life - we move into a punctuated, quiet, understated jazzy chorus, and the imagery of warfare applied to relationships.
I've blown apart my life for you
And bodies hit the floor for you
And break me, shake me, devastate me,
Come here, baby
Tell me that I'm wrong
I don't love you, I just love the bomb
Buildings falling is the only thing that turns me on.
I see this song in the eyes of a certain, ongoing military conflict, and not just another one of those moments that punctuate the generation in which this, and other albums have been released. I am imposing meaning beyond the detonation of an ending relationship. Or am I?
I don't love you, I just love the bomb
I let it burn, but it had to be done
And I'm in ruins, but is it what I wanted all along?
Sometimes you get the girl, sometimes you get a song
The song may just well be the lie we hear in the news, the restriction of freedom, or maybe, just a bitter relationship breaking down into literal ruins. Enough reality. We now have other things to speak of, fantastic things, emerging from Florence's favourite place: the sea.
Mermaids
This is a song that grows on you. Or rather, erodes your own shoreline of tolerance. It is initially difficult to penetrate, but once you do - it is a layered, trumpeting anthem to hedonism linked back to the sea.
But then, there's so much tragedy, such violent imagery that forms a barrage of meaning.
Sea foam woman on the shore
Your prairie ghost, I'm a cottage whore
All the mermaids have sharp teeth
Razorblades all in your feet.
This is simply foreshadowing, before the song begins proper. The girls glitter / striding glorious and coatless in the rain / I remember falling through these streets / Somewhat out of place, if not for the drunkenness.
Then, the simple chorus. Two words. Cheerful Oblivion. Repeated. Sung with closed eyes, probably. And a little piano driven melody. Then the beautiful imagery of modernity: It was not all pain and pavements slick with rain.
And the dance floor is filling up with blood
But oh, Lord, you've never been so in love
Not only a reminder of the "before", but that foreshadowing comes back. Those razorblades in feet. The endless, ceaseless tide of infection. That return to Cheerful Oblivion. We aren't there yet, as a society, but I hope that we might see it once more - the cheerful oblivion, that is.
Morning Elvis
And finally, we arrive at Morning Elvis, a song about exhaustion, about the tour to likely come following the release of the album. This is a poignant end to an album.
Of us, of Artists, of people, just being a husk going through the motions until death comes to claim us. It is a sad song, and that's okay. Of the doubt of continuing to perform; without the spectre of loss, but then, there's the flame:
... The call, it always comes,
And it sounds like children
Begging to be born
All the songs on this album are Florence's children, and I'm so glad that they were born.
I am hoping that there will be many more.
Conclusion
This is the best Florence and the Machine album yet. It sets a higher bar, and I long to see what comes next. There isn't a bad track on this album. It is hit after hit, sledgehammer of meaning after sledgehammer of meaning.
People don't listen to albums anymore, cover to cover.
They should, and they could start here.
Bangers:
All of them.