Florence and the Machine’s new album, Everybody Scream, comes out this Halloween. With a lengthy discography of grand and raw ballads featuring biblical, fairytale and mythological references, it can be hard to know where to start. This article will examine her work album by album, covering themes, criticism, and praise of each.
Lungs (2009): Esotericism Comes to Your Local Cafe
The first studio album from Florence and the Machine, and possibly her most popular, is likely to have introduced you to its most popular single, ‘Dog Days’, which has become an indie coffee shop staple. The album is full of well-crafted and powerful songs best experienced screaming around a campfire with a handful of your best friends.
Lungs is the experience of drowning, encompassing the emotions of love, anger, fear, and ambition as experienced by Florence. Her powerful vocals matched with the intense drums and choral accompaniments. Florence draws on her experiences outside the real world, incorporating biblical, mythological, and literary references as a constant companion to her overwhelming emotions. While the album is celebrating its 16th anniversary in 2025, there is still nothing quite like it out there.
Here are the four songs to dive into first:
‘Dog Days are Over’
‘Rabbit Heart’
‘Between Two Lungs’
‘My Boy Builds Coffins’
Ceremonials (2011): Sequin Dresses in a Crypt
Ceremonials followed the massive success of the comparatively simple Lungs. The sound is bulkier, and while Florence’s vocals are always bold belts, the backing aid is more noticeable in this album.
Individually, the songs are fantastic, ‘If Only for a Night’ and ‘No Light, No Light’ being some of the best in her discography. Ceremonials often face criticism for being repetitive. Many of the songs build up in a run to the chorus. While impactful and well-suited to Florence’s powerful vocals, this crescendo effect is overused and abused in this album.
This album has a darkness that Lungs does not, while being similar thematically, the sense of drowning in this album is more scared, sad, desperate, and has a more pronounced biblical influence. The lyrics of Ceremonials range from vulnerable expressions and gaping wounds, such as in ‘Never Let Me Go’, to expressions further from her experiences, such as ‘Seven Devils’. Needless to say, to the nerds who are reading this, every good D&D character playlist deserves a song from Ceremonials.
Here is the list of songs to dip your toes into this album:
‘If Only For A night’
‘No Light No Light’
‘Seven Devils’
‘All This And Heaven Too’
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015): Getting Better One Storm at a Time
Now onto her third album, ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ is her best vocally (which is indeed a high bar). It contains the darkness of ‘Ceremonials’ but the varied essence of ‘Lungs’.
The overall message of the album is a break from her past two, where ‘Lungs’ and ‘Ceremonials’ are characterised by the overwhelming grand feelings. ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ is about navigating the gothic rabbit hole of the past, accepting and embracing change. Once again, water is a common motif, but the difference in this album is that her ship may wreck, and the bridge may be crumbling, but while not always successful, she is now accepting the changing tides and learning to sail the ship.
In this album, Florence creeps into the modern world. In the titular track, she pokes her head into the real world, not in the mythic coastal woodlands that usually haunt her songs. Quickly diving back into her storybook, there is a fresh breath of reality not previously found in her work. While in Hollywood, she tackles more honest experiences of being wrapped in awe and confusion, wanting to connect with the world, but it’s not quite sticking.
Songs to listen to from this album:
‘Ship To Wreck’
‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’
‘Long & Lost’
‘Third Eye‘
‘Which Witch’
High As Hope (2018): Meh
Quite possibly her least popular album, ‘High as Hope’ is bland in comparison to the oceanic ballads of the past. Florence’s iconic belt is missing, leading to disappointment as she no longer sounds godly but average.
‘High As Hope’ is still commendable in the storytelling aspect, being a stripped-back album, the lyrics are no longer filled with mystique, but instead simple answers to what it feels like to be her. In many instances, this is good. She is no longer escaping staring the complex knot of emotion head-on. The lyrics go beyond the honesty previously found in her work and raise the curtain of myth and metaphor, speaking plainly for once.
The honesty is commendable, but her statements, with no veil of mystery, no longer fit the winding structure. In this album, as she takes the more roundabout ways to the chorus, there is no scenery to keep the songs from being dull and slow. There is nothing more to say, but she just keeps talking.
This album is one of yearning for a great something and feeling an immeasurable gaping hole. There is some hope as she searches for what will end her emptiness, but before she finds it, she is filling the gap in more harmful ways. This album feels like a tired storm, and the weight of the sky she writes to the bottom of her discography. The album itself feels like a sigh; she’s said what she has had to but lacks the energy necessary to say it any louder.
Nevertheless, there are decent songs to be found in this tired storm:
‘June’
‘Hunger’
‘100 Years’
Dance Fever (2022): We are Glorious, Angry, and Taking Down the Patriarchy
Her most recent Album, Dance Fever, is Florence and the Machine’s return to her ethereal self with anger and pride inherited from albums past and the world that is vastly different from the one she started singing in.
Dance Fever is primarily set in the real world, and while still deeply emotional, it is more about feminist rage and deep shame than any of her previous ballads. In this album, she lies on the bathroom floor, feeling ashamed and alone. Yet she knows there is feminine power within her, and she bites back at the patriarchy, breaking the mould of what she should be, and showing who she is and wants to be. In Dance Fever, Florence is still having oceanic emotions, but now she is leading the charge for change, alive, unwell, and king.
No longer stripped back, Florence is once again loud. Brass and oomph is central to the production, while there are moments of calm, the music matches her feelings. She combines the simple feelings and mythic mist that was attempted in How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, but now strikes a balance that is graceful, interesting, and ready to fight.
In preparation for Everybody Scream, it is well worth a listen to the entire album, but if time is precious:
‘King’
‘Free’
‘Girls Against God’
‘Mermaids’
‘Morning Elvis’
Everybody Scream Singles (2025): Halloween with Rage and an English Student Disposition
Two singles from Everybody Scream have been released: the titular track “Everybody Scream” and “One of the Greats“. Based on what is known so far, this album is inspired by figures and monsters commonly associated with Halloween. The first single Everybody Scream has witchy elements, and One of the Greats is certainly zombified. The feminine rage and ever-amazing vocals remain, while both songs wander about a bit; the narrative is bold and matches the complexity in structure.
Featured image credit: Polydor Records
Spencer is a 3rd Year History and English student interested in library science, baking, and storytelling.
