Review: Florence + the Machine — Everybody Scream

Florence + the Machine
Everybody Scream
Republic Records
Street: 10.31.2025
Florence + The Machine = Halsey x Fleetwood Mac

A new album from Florence + the Machine is bound to be full of magic, darkness and joy. After all, this is the woman who personified her anxiety in “Free.” Deep excavations of emotion are synonymous with Florence + the Machine, at least for this critic. Still, their sixth album, Everybody Scream, surprised even me. It’s full of breathless pleas, praying and preaching from the realms of reality and also the depths of imagination, melded together. It’s a raw and deeply human album, almost uncontainable, like these songs burst forth into the world without hesitation.

Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine

In the title track “Everybody Scream,” listeners are greeted by the vocals of a glorious choir and quickly ushered past the altar and led into the den where the angelic notes are replaced with hyena howls. It sets the scene: Florence Welch, grappling simultaneously with “the magic and misery, madness and the mystery” of being a performer, of giving her entire self to the stage and what the cost has been.

That theme continues throughout the album, shifting into “One of the Greats” where her voice bites out words like “beraggled” and “crucify” with a cinematic, if not slightly hypnotic quality. “So like a woman to profit from her madness,” she declares bitterly in the bridge. It’s like a worship call beckoning listeners, baiting and enthralling them. 

Throughout the album, the production props up the dense lyricism perfectly. Bursts of deep beats and the sprinkling of light chimes make for a symphony-like collection. When songs build up, they build up rapidly, like a rollercoaster, the crescendo loud and bold.

Production That Amplifies Emotion and Momentum

“Witch Dance,” a heady track full of panting and screams and breathlessness, captures pure Welch at her core: witchy and thoughtful and unafraid, while “Sympathy Magic”  sounds like a reckoning, with a chorus that consoles. These songs kick off  the crux of the record. “Perfume and Milk” — the album’s most mystical track — mentions miracles and prayers, pilgrimages, lace and leather, but also grapples with the good and the bad: “Trying to live but feeling so damaged.” 

“Buckle,” my favorite song, is a brilliant and witty reflection on the word itself. It’s a frank little song, one that grapples with attention, a touch of self-loathing and holding onto a bad habit, even if you are “too old” for it.

Witchcraft, Reckoning, and the Album’s Mystical Core

The clever “Kraken” rounds out this middle section of the album, but  “The Old Religion” is buried in the tracklist right after it. It builds slowly, steadily. In this case, the old religion might be fate or belief in oneself. “And it’s your troubled hero, back for season six,” Welch sings. 

Ending the album with “And Love” is a thoughtful touch — it’s a song that is not devoid of the previous 11 tracks’ heavy, dark nature, but rather it surrenders to it in a serene way. It’s soft. A spoken prayer. An optimistic belief that feels like the first breath after drowning. 

Florence + the Machine Deliver a Bold, Commanding Finale

The tracks feel at once carefully crafted and unbearably tender, like writing this heady collection was a herculean task that only Welch could do. These divine decrees grapple with ponderings of self-doubt and belief, of whimsy and also anger. This album relishes momentary contentment and wallows in life’s disappointments.

Florence Welch may feel like the never-ending journey to be one of the greats, to give all of herself to her craft, isn’t appreciated enough. But in Everybody Scream, she is as usual — a brilliant, bold and commanding force. Her unrelenting authenticity is what makes her one of the greats, and six albums in, that hasn’t wavered one bit. —Palak Jayswal

 

Read more album reviews by Palak Jayswal:
Review: LANY — Soft
Review: Taylor Swift — The Life of a Showgirl