“The July sun beats down upon them as they hop from leg to leg, spin in circles and whoop loudly. From a distance they might be carnival revellers. But closer inspection reveals a more disquieting scene. Their arms are flailing and their bodies are convulsing spasmodically. Ragged clothes and pinched faces are saturated in sweat. Their eyes are glassy, distant. Blood seeps from swollen feet into leather boots and wooden clogs. These are not revellers but “choreomaniacs”, entirely possessed by the mania of the dance.” – Excerpt from “The Dancing Plague of 1518” by Ned Pennant-Rae

The concept of dance being something that happens to you, something that you get swept up into is nothing new. From the Bee Gees’ sound tracking the disco haze “fever” of John Travolta to Stravinsky’s pagan Rite of Spring where the sacrificial victim of spring dances herself to death. The cinematic catharsis from dance has been well documented from Black Swan to Dirty Dancing. The right music can move you in a direction you might not otherwise choose. That idea of giving yourself wholly over to another force, to the power of music, takes center stage in Florence + the Machine’s fifth album, Dance Fever.

This is a pandemic soundtrack through the lens of Florence Welch. The idea of being struck down from the only thing she’s known – singing and performing on stage – to the solitude of sitting in one spot heavily influenced the album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she said that in her most anxious moments during quarantine she would feel the need to dance to release the fear of never being able to tour again, saying, “I need the movement to move it out of myself. If I sit in the sadness, it doesn’t go away.” It’s an album celebrating that release that can only come from movement, moving towards something physically or emotionally.

In “King,” that movement is surrounding adulthood; having children, getting married, and thinking about the future. The physical trappings of womanhood where, “a woman is a changeling, always shifting shape.” There’s the idea of being trapped in your old ways in “Back In Town” or being trapped in a dead-end relationship in “Girls Against God” where you want out but finding yourself still circling back to “listen to music from 2006 and feel kind of sick.” The album is a rally cry against the inertia that pulls you back to stillness and the only way to bust free of the cycle is to keep moving, even if it kills you.