Florence + The Machine are back and more mystical than ever with a new single after officially announcing their next album, Everybody Scream. The news dropped on Florence Welch’s social media after a chilling teaser that featured the vocalist screaming into a hole in an empty field. Now, the title track has dropped along with a music video and more details into the project.
Everybody Scream is due out on October 31, a fitting release date for an album rooted in mysticism and witchcraft, according to Welch. A follow-up to Dance Fever from 2022, the new album was created out of a time of healing, discovering bodily limits, and recovering from a life-saving surgery.
In 2023, Florence + The Machine was forced to cancel a pair of festival appearances. Later, Welch explained on social media that she had to undergo “emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet,” she wrote, “but it saved my life.”
Over the past two years, Welch has written and produced Everybody Scream. Collaborators include IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen, Mitski, and The National’s Aaron Dessner. Comprised of 12 tracks focusing on womanhood, death and dying, aging, and mythology, the album is now available to pre-order.
Florence Welch Speaks With apple music about new album’s influences
Going live with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe today, August 20, Florence Welch spoke about her direction for Everybody Scream. She mentioned being entrenched in the fear of releasing a project, and elaborated on where that fear comes from. Specifically, the new single is about that fear of putting herself out there more and more.
“There’s always a bit of me that wants to keep hiding—like, ‘No no no, I’m not ready, put it off,’” she explained. “This time, I challenged myself to not delay a record. I was like, ‘Just move through the fear and put it out.’ The song itself is about the pull back to the stage and why I always keep going back there, even though every time it takes a little bit more from me.”
Welch also briefly broached the subject of Everybody Scream being her most personal Florence + The Machine album to date. While Dance Fever felt that way at the time, Welch stated that it’s really this one that earns that title.
“I think this is my most personal record to date,” she said, “which has also made it in some ways my most mythological. I had to find a world that I could build around it that was really solid.”
Florence + The Machine “screams into the ground” on new album
The screaming motif is one that will possibly weave its way through the entire record. Welch then described forming the seed of the album out of the idea of celebratory screaming. Besides wanting the album title to rhyme with Florence + The Machine, she said, “There was a playlist that was like ‘Songs to Scream Along To’ and I was like, ‘What does that mean? You just put this playlist on and scream alone in your house, into the floor?’”
When asked “When are you outside?” Welch mentioned that’s something her friends ask her a lot. “’Have you been outside today? Did you get out of the cry corner? Have you stopped screaming into the ground?’” she said. With a laugh she added, “This isn’t the cry corner. I’m in my study. The lungs from Lungs are in here, there’s artwork from all the albums, this is a happy corner. The cry corner is elsewhere.”
Photo by Kieran Frost/Redferns
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