#MusicMay-hem: Florence & The Machine's "Dance Fever"

Don't be surprised if years from now, in the annals of music history, there is an entry about May 2022. The sheer number of mega-watt, eyebrow-raising music releases in this short period of time is unlike anything I have experienced in my (admittedly short) time as somewhat of a music junkie. On a single day, in fact, Friday the 13th, we witnessed the return of Kendrick Lamar, arguably the greatest rapper in the game today, indie darling Florence & The Machine with her first release since 2018, and The Black Keys, arguably one of the biggest and most important American rock bands in the last decade. If that wasn't enough, that smattering of new material came one week after the latest album from Arcade Fire, one of the biggest alternative-rock groups in the World, and one week before the new release from Harry Styles, one of the biggest pop stars in the World. It's a good thing Frank Ocean hasn't also decided to resurface this month-- yet!! --otherwise I think the Internet might actually fold in on itself.

Florence & The Machine’s Dance Fever likely will have been the lowest-key release of the slew of them; she commands considerably less universal name recognition than her May-release peers. But for her fanbase and for indie musicheads alike, her return was a big deal. 2018 marked the last release from Flo and The Mo, and you’d be forgiven if you thought her absence felt even longer, as that one, High as Hope, was also somewhat lost amidst higher-profile releases in that calendar year. Interestingly enough, though, Florence Welch mentioned that much of this album was written some time ago and recording was actually scheduled for early 2020. Then, as you might have remembered, a small event named the COVID-19 Pandemic threw a wrench in those plans, causing a delay of two years on the recording and release.

Dance Fever is here now, though, and brings Florence back in her full baroque pop glory. I was curious, as I’m sure many a fan of her was, to see whether this album would continue tonally from the more stripped-back High as Hope, or whether it would return to the glorious, orchestral melodrama of her first three albums, perfected (in my opinion) in the third of that trilogy, the brilliant How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. With a name like Dance Fever, I was inclined to believe it would be the latter. This belief grew even further reading Florence’s own words on the inspiration of the album: inspired by her own fascination with ‘choreomania,’ Welch explained she was hoping to emulate the “dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop sound. . . that is meant to be enjoyed during the return of clubs, live music and dancing at festivals.”

In addition to reading up on the theme of the album, I took an early sneak peek at Metacritic, which I’m not sure I should have done. I try to avoid reading up on critical reviews until listening, but for whatever reason I didn't this time and took note of the fact that this was already her best-reviewed work by some margin. Given the early critical acclaim and what I was led to believe about the album’s tone, then, I found myself a little disappointed to find that more than anything, this does in fact play more like a spiritual successor to High as Hope.

The album starts promisingly, with a solid opening trilogy of tracks, including being kicked off by the album’s lead single “King.” This track, as well as the two that immediately follow, “Free,” and “Choreomania,” set the album on an intriguing trajectory with terrific energy. But then, Dance Fever does abruptly and somewhat inexplicably lose steam about midway through, never really fully returning to the pace the title and first several tracks promised. To be clear, it's not that Florence can't do ‘slow’; she very can, sometimes to devastating effect (such as with “St. Jude” and "Long & Lost” in albums past), and she does it again here at times, the simmering boil of “Girls Against God” and album closer “Morning Elvis” being the best examples.

Her lyricism also hasn’t missed a beat, every bit as profoundly vulnerable as she always has been, and coming from a voice that’s even more streetwise, mature (and hopefully, healthy) than it’s been before. No matter the pace of the song, I’ll never complain about having the ability to listen to Florence ruminating on identity, masculinity vs. femininity, self-help and redemption.

But, with such a big portion of the album dedicated to the ‘slow burn,’ it feels like a waste of her powerhouse vocals and the thrilling grandeur we know she's capable of, and it renders songs like “Back In Town,” “Restraint” and “The Bomb” feel more draggy and uninteresting than they would be if strewn amongst a more consistently high-energy tracklist.

Now, do not read my disappointment as anything more than mild. Dance Fever is above all else still a very good album. The back half I decried does include a few highlights, including "My Love", which is probably the best song she's written since 2015 and the era of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. It's a record that seems likely to age well, and is certainly good enough to earn replay value. I suppose I just miss the days where I could listen to an album of hers and INSTANTLY want to replay it, ad nauseum, until I've fully saturated myself with melancholy, tear-jerking, baroque-rock dance fever.