CHVRCHES
Screen Violence
EMI/Glassnote
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Crate digging my way through the aisles of a local record store, I had one of those moments of new music discovery that sticks with you. It was the same way I had discovered many of my favorite artists. While your mind is actively hunting for this release or that, a sound comes over the speakers that awakens you from your focus. On this occasion, the song "Lungs" glitched its way through the air and into my brainwaves. And click, I was hooked. I soon discovered the band reverberating all of my senses was CHVRCHES, a Scottish trio hailing from Glasgow.
Glasgow. Enough said. This city had produced some of my favorite music, from Simple Minds to The Blue Nile to Primal Scream to Travis to Belle and Sebastian and on. So, with such pedigree afoot, I grabbed their debut, the glistening synth-pop of The Bones Of What You Believe (2013) and began a journey of growing appreciation with each successive release (although, confession time, the last album Love Is Dead was so-so for me, but to each their own.)
So, with the release of their fourth album, Screen Violence, I was drawn in again to see what they would deliver and if, indeed, my love affair with them was dead.
With recording beginning in early 2020, CHVRCHES found themselves creating their pandemic album with sessions carried on remotely between Los Angeles and Glasgow. From the detached confines of computer screens and file-sharing programs, the trio have delivered an album that connects in a way few have in the past year. Maybe it's their innate ability to draw humanity out of midi triggers and synth waves that makes the music so befitting of this specific point in time.
With Screen Violence—a name taken from a rejected list of band names (and in that case be thankful the album isn't called “Shark Week”)—and its horror-inspired cover, the trio confronts the access and excess of an existence that has us more and more dependent on our screens for validation and affirmation. It explores the ills of social media, the shallowness and soul-destroying capacity of the male gaze, and the depression and isolation that a world seemingly connected can bring. Yet it does it so with a sheen that is alluring and all-absorbing, and even in its darkest moments, holds a glimmer of hope.
From the pulsating opener "Asking For A Friend" overflowing with regret and lament, Lauren Mayberry's vocals pierce through with a sense of vulnerability that welcomes you and provides comfort to the guitar-soaked twang of dissolution and broken dreams of "California," the sense of a post-modern reality check feels like a joyous reckoning and rebirth for both band and listener.
The frantic drum loops of "Violent Delights" blur memory and aspiration while building a foundation for Mayberry to exorcise some of her demons, casting them off as she confesses thoughts of suicide and crippling anxiety. And on "Nightmares," there's a sense of absolution against grinding beats and whirling as the complexities of relationships are exhumed and explored. The slow-burning chase in the song's second half with a disembodied spoken-word piece adds to the drama and builds fascination.
Moments of sweetness appear in the escapism of "Lullabies" and the simplicity of "Better If You Don't" with its haunting nostalgia and natural resignation. In these moments, bandmates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty create a minimalist canvas for Mayberry to explore and her vocals feel extra raw and befittingly fragile.
Elsewhere, Cook and Doherty create cinematic soundscapes to match the mood of Mayberry's lyrics, and with each passing bar the trio twist and contort melodies into anthemic moments. "Final Girl" draws on the troupe of horror films as Mayberry looks to rescue herself from the pressures of being a modern pop princess, as she sings, "So I need to get out now while most of me is still intact." This exploration continues in the pairing of "Good Girls" which chips away at the expectations groomed into girls from a young age and the sense of failure that comes with growing up and defining your own boundaries.
This sense of expectation and finding value in a world shaped through the male gaze rears its misogynistic head in the powerful "He Said She Said," where confusion and anxiety-inducing observations reign supreme upon gritty, heavy beats and a rousing refrain of "I feel like I'm losing my mind" that peaks with just the right amount of pleasure.
A sense of dread swirls around "How Not To Drown," as The Cure's Robert Smith duets with Mayberry and dives into the defiance of refusing to be held down by outside pressure and influence. With murky synths and shimmering guitars, the track is visceral and ultimately a vital song of survival.
For all the dread and dislocation present in Screen Violence, it's surprisingly comforting. A "you're not in this alone" lifeline that seeks to save with every anthemic refrain—and there are many. The trio has crafted a near-perfect post-pandemic (oh please God) synth-pop journey that is at once an escape and a finding of common ground. For all of the horror motifs at play, the feeling is a stark contrast, presenting an almost Hughesian sense of being able to survive the most trying of times and feel inspired by it.
Notable Tracks: “Asking For A Friend” | “He Said She Said” | “How Not To Drown” | “Violent Delights”
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