In anticipation of the release of Dance Fever, Florence + the Machine will play a special show on May 6 at Alice Tully Hall. Dance Fever was recorded in London over the course of the pandemic. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown—clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness—and the hope of reunions to come.

Prior to the pandemic Florence had become fascinated by choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people—sometimes thousands—danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death. Armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had arrived in New York in March 2020 to begin recording when Covid-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs began to transform, with nods to dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop, longing-for-the-road folk tracks a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris and more, arriving somewhere that Florence describes as “Nick Cave at the club.” Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realized self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculinity and femininity, redemption and celebration.