Photo by Autumn de Wilde

Florence + the Machine have shared their first release of 2022 titled “King,” along with a music video by director Autumn de Wilde.

The song serves as a mediation on femininity, womanhood and subverting of expectations in which Florence Welch declares, “I am no mother, I am no bride… I am King.”

The video features the artist adorned in a royal purple robe and hood – floating several feet above the ground. In an abandoned utilitarian building, she finds a lone and lost man and swiftly breaks his neck. She then continues to declare her regal rank as a small army of retainers in gray robes and high-heeled boots dance behind her following her outside, where she once again rises closer to the heavens.

“As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much,” Welch said in a press release. “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 modeled 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.”

Florence + the Machine’s last release was 2018’s High as Hope, and last year, the group worked on the soundtrack for Disney’s Cruella.

Listen to “King” on digital formats here.

Watch the video for “King” below: