Score: 4/5
Everybody Scream is an album that leaves you speechless. It’s dark and soul crushing yet somehow purifying — a disorienting journey from near death to rebirth.
Casting spells and wailing are what you get from any Florence + the Machine record. On their sixth album — spearheaded once again by lead vocalist and songwriter Florence Welsh — the band leans into the witchcraft imagery and soring vocals that they’ve become known for, leading the listener into a dark, primal place born from pain, survival and an urgent need to start again.
Welch’s personal history fuels the album’s emotional core. After surviving a near-death experience on stage and undergoing life-saving surgery for an ectopic pregnancy while on tour for her previous album Dance Fever, Welsh returns transformed.
Though her initial plan was to take a break and have a family after Dance Fever, life led her in a different direction. In an interview with CBS This Morning, Welch called this record a “silent scream that so many women go through,” and that rage and renewal bleeds through every note. Everybody Scream is Welsh as she copes and pieces herself back together after unthinkable loss.
The album opens in pure chaos: title track “Everybody Scream” is thunderous and ritualistic, a literal and thematic call to arms. The recurring howls and cries thread throughout the record and subsequent album like a sonic exorcism.
From there, the album shifts between confrontation and consolation. “One of the Greats” is a six-minute centerpiece reflecting on fame, icon-hood and the gendered double standards of the industry. Welch sings, “I’ll be up there with the men and the ten other women / and the hundred greatest records of all time / it must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can,” a biting and layered line that captures both exhaustion and resentment. Later, “Music by Men” continues the commentary and reflection on misogyny, turning loss and detachment into a critique of how women’s sacrifices go unrecognized.
Songs like “Sympathy Magic” showcase the album’s tension between pain and perseverance. It begins softly and grows into an all-encompassing crescendo — the sound of rebirth and light bringing an urge to dance and live again.
Collaborations and production choices strengthen that emotional range: influence from The National’s Aaron Dessner provides a steady through-line, while Mitski’s guest spot on “Buckle” and the title track adds aching nuance to an album about womanhood in its darkest moments.
Explosive moments like “Kraken” and “You Can Have It All” embody the album’s feral energy, showing Welch at her most untamed. The final track, “And Love,” offers stillness — a closing exhale after all the screaming, a moment of peace that feels earned.
While she explores her private life in new ways, Welch also expands her vocal range and ear for production, sounding the strongest she ever has, but with the unmistakable presence of someone changed by what she’s endured.
Everybody Scream has no shortage of standout tracks, yet a few songs feel more like interludes than complete statements — occasionally breaking its momentum. Like many of the group’s projects, Everybody Scream gets lost in its own atmosphere; certain tracks drift into mood pieces — beautiful but indistinct. The band’s signature witchy intensity can occasionally overwhelm rather than empower, yet even in its weaker moments, every sound still feels intentional, which is part of the project’s larger theme.
At its best, Everybody Scream is primal, cathartic and utterly consuming. It doesn’t just showcase Florence Welch’s survival; it celebrates her transformation. Some moments may drift into indulgence, but it still hits hard enough to shake the soul.