Florence and The Machine
Dance Fever

Four years after “High as Hope,” which marks the culmination of a gradual departure from the baroque elements and controlled chaos of their debut towards more sparse and essential sounds, Florence Welch and her loyal and always harmonious Machine return to the stage with “Dance Fever,” which sonically is the closest the English band has come to their beginnings in quite some time. This time, however, there's a significant factor that makes a difference: a great awareness of their own capabilities brought about by a finally mastered artistic maturity, which, in practical terms, means the band has finally succeeded in perfecting that sound that, since their debut, has established itself not only as a trademark but also as their cross and delight.

“Lungs” and, most notably, “Ceremonials” had indeed the flaw of offering pompous and layered arrangements that worked brilliantly on individual tracks but much less effectively across an entire album; in other words, there was the feeling that all the winning elements the group had at its disposal were played out right away in a handful of initial tracks to be then repeated continuously in all the others, thus weighing down the listening experience of the album as a whole. In “Dance Fever,” however, this problem does not arise; quite the opposite, thanks to the production handled by the now ubiquitous Jack Antonoff, the band seems to have found new vigor: the sonic and vocal baroque elements are back but are managed much better, and old and new musical influences are channeled into the album in a much more measured and intelligent way than in the past. This significantly enhances the sonic variety of the tracklist: it smoothly transitions from the electro-pop of “Free,” one of the best tracks, to the dreamy disco of “My Love,” the blues of “Dream Girl Evil,” and the folk of “Choreomania,” not forgetting some hints of country in “Morning Elvis” and echoes of Kate Bush in “Cassandra.” All of this, moreover, without Antonoff's work being in any way overbearing: the production serves the Machine and the songs, not the other way around.

The success of the album, however, is not solely due to the strictly musical side: two years of forced pause from touring and major stages have compelled Florence Welch, the true heart of the band, to embark on a journey of self-analysis which in “Dance Fever” translates into extremely personal and expressive lyrics, in which the author expresses her insecurities and visions between introspection and biblical and pagan mythology. A burst of inspiration that, combined with Welch's fascination for the late-medieval phenomenon of the so-called “dancing plague” (the choreomania that gives its name to the eponymous track), helps shape the band's darkest work to date, where brief and seemingly bright parentheses are drowned in a halo of darkness (see, for instance, the synthetic tribalism of “Daffodil,” which, after an angelic start, surrenders to a mystical and solemn progression).

Therefore, this is the band's least immediate work, with the songs revealing their power listen after listen, but also one that contends for the title of their best album alongside “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful,” of which in some respects it represents almost an antithesis (explosive and direct in the latter, more composed and subdued, at least apparently, in “Dance Fever”).

Finally, a great merit of the album is that it serves as a new starting point for the band's future: so far, Welch and company have managed to vary their offering from album to album, keeping it recognizable without being (almost) ever repetitive, and it will therefore be interesting to see towards which horizons they will steer their artistic evolution. In the meantime, there's nothing left to do but enjoy this beautiful gothic tale, expertly narrated by one of the best personalities in pop music of the last decade, while waiting for Florence and her musicians to once again delight us as soon as possible with a live show like only they can do.