Florence & The Machine – Dance Fever

When Florence & The Machine announced a record entitled “Dance Fever”, one couldn’t help but think/fear that the orchestral, emotional artist had gone dance-pop star (or even worse, EDM…). But in reality, the album is named after choreomania, a Medieval madness where people began dancing uncontrollably until they collapsed, which occurred for centuries and has never been fully explained. So basically, the perfect subject for Florence & The Machine’s epic orchestral emotion.

Fever has its own Florence anthem as big as the “Dog Days” in “Free”, the growing feminine power of “Girls Against God”, even Florence Welch’s own exclamation, “My Love”. But there’s also her truly tragic takes, like on actual (if modern) “Choreomania” (that has some absolutely killer lines, which this review won’t spoil by trying to repeat without the music), or “Cassandra”, because of course Welch would have an epic about the doomed seer of Ancient Greece. The record even ends with first the sweet, accepting sway of the penultimate “The Bomb”, then Welch’s autobiographical long day’s journey into Grace(land), “Morning Elvis”.

Florence & The Machine’s ability to bring the classical, whether medieval or orchestral, into modern hits has been something to behold. And it continues as we catch this Dance Fever.