However, most mistaken the band as Florence’s solo project as the group bears her name. It would help if they said it sounds like a duo because Isabella is “the Machine”. I have heard many accounts where “the Machine” has been mistaken for Florence’s backing band. I first heard Florence and the Machine via a friend’s iTunes playlist in late 2008. I had never heard of the band, and he had ‘Rabbit Heart(Raise it up)’ on this playlist. I was instantly impressed with Florence’s vocal range on the track. Alas, I was disappointed with Florence’s live vocals when I saw them live at Glastonbury, iTunes, Oxygen, and Reading/Leeds that year. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed the music, but those notes she hit on ‘Rabbit Heart(Raise it up)’ were far from what I heard on the studio version.
I don’t intend to make this a long review for their latest album, “Dance Fever”, because I am not sold on it. Plenty of the tracks have long intros or outros, making me think they plan on doing another short film as they did for their 2015 record “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful”. I prefer that album to this. “Dance Fever” was made over the past two years during lockdown. From what I gathered, the record focuses on mental health, and Florence details it like talking to a therapist. This isn’t my reason for not liking it. The intros and outros were far too long.
The production is tame to what you have come to have known Florence and the Machine for. The production is split between Jack Antonoff and Dave Bayley. It is hard to write about one song because they seem to crash into each other. I enjoyed the bonus disc that featured four songs off the standard version acoustically and a track called ‘Search and Destroy’, which for me was the best track of the entire album, but it is a cover of the Stooges song.
Song recommendations: ‘Search and Destroy’, ‘Cassandra’, ‘Free’
6/10
Honest Opinions 