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things that are out of our control . A recurrent motif on Dance Fever is devils and angels , biblical concepts of good and bad . In the past - in her life , and in her work - Welch felt pressure to please everyone , to be “ the good girl ”. This record , and everything that has happened in the last two years , offered a chance to invert this . Channelling the malevolence of horror became a way to flip the old angelic transcendence into “ a darker thing ”. Welch says that it ’ s also an acknowledgment of feeling scared , “ and that one way to resolve this is making yourself scary ”. The singer ’ s voice has grown in strength and timbre , moving from the playful ‘ Free ’ to the husky depths of ‘ Dream Girl Evil ’. There are totemic nods to musicians she listened to in lockdown , notably Iggy Pop ’ s baritone mantra . When this homage creature voice appears on ‘ Restraint ’, it reminds us that something is coming for us , and encroaching domesticity is wrestled with on many tracks .
But there is something else at stake . Being a woman artist , and one who performs provides its own conflict . How to thrive and continue along the same path that male artists – Welch mentions Nick Cave , Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger – whose stars keep ascending , whose path to success is unimpeded by biology . In her mid-30s , these are the contradictions Welch is grappling with . “ I never actually thought about my gender that much . I just got on with it . I was as good as the men and I just went out there and matched them every time . But now , thinking about being a woman in my 30s and the future … I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires . That to be a performer , but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts . I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers , and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not .”
This concern is also at the centre of the album ’ s duality – there are frequent references to a splitting of the self , being torn in two , good and bad , devil and angel . An overriding sense of being pulled towards opposing forces . Coupled with the undercurrent of folklore , it enhances its fablelike quality . At times , there are multiple layers of voices , a sort of choral possession , as the only possible way to tell an urgent story . This duality echoes again on ‘ King ’, as Welch declares , “ I am no mother , I am no bride , I am King ”. What if the king of rock is not a man - one who became such a myth , broken by his own mythology – but a woman , who is keen to cast off hers and reign for years to come ?
It felt liberating to embody a darker entity , often using the song as character , allowing it to speak for itself . For Welch , “ the songs know , they always speak truthfully ”, and all the panic and breathlessness of ‘ Choreomania ’ came to her - almost prophetically - before Covid , “ the arc of the record is a kind of ‘ be careful what you wish for ’ fairytale , I wished that the monster of performance would let me go , and then it did , and then I spend the rest of the record begging it to take me back .”
Dance Fever might have started out as an album destined for fields and stages , but it worked within its own chrysalis , shapeshifting into a new creature . Life sometimes forces our hand , or things just don ’ t pan out the way we want . But out of this , comes a wondering and transcendence ; a desire to pick up the remaining pieces and see what can be built . As Welch sings on ‘ Girls Against God ’: I met the devil / You know he gave me a choice / A golden heart or a / Golden voice . Sometimes you get neither . Sometimes you get both . It ’ s what you do with them – if you build , sing , dance – that counts .
24 wirrallife . com