Chvrches love is dead vinyl review

Love Is Dead shows the Glasgow indie electro three-piece super-sizing their synth-pop, adding a surprising aggression to boot. Don’t be surprised if Love Is Dead seals their superstardom

★★★★

| 21 May 2018

Album title: Love Is Dead

Artist: CHVRCHES

Label: Virgin Records

Release date: 25 May

Now they’ve made it to New York, CHVRCHES are aiming for the big time. Teaming up with Grammy-winning pop producer Greg Kurstin, CHVRCHES’ third LP Love Is Dead shows the Glasgow indie electro three-piece super-sizing their synth-pop, adding a surprising aggression to boot.

From the neon blue cross through a black heart on the album art and lead vocalist Lauren Mayberry singing of writing names along bathroom walls on colourful opener Graffiti, it’s clear that Love Is Dead is aiming to grow CHVRCHES’ audience. Lead single Get Out epitomises the trio’s more direct approach this time out as its billowing synths give way to an anthemic singalong chorus.

But if you think that means they're dumbing down, you’re dead wrong. Inspired by working with an external producer for the first time, Love Is Dead shows CHVRCHES attaining a greater urgency and darkness in tracks such as the dramatic, M83-esque Deliverance and My Enemy, a stuttering, drugged up duet between Mayberry and The National’s Matt Berninger.

Mayberry’s constantly questioning presence, bulked by Iain Cook and Martin Doherty’s ambitious soundscapes, succeeds in taking CHVRCHES to heights they’ve never reached before. 'I always regret the night I told you I would hate you 'til forever,' Mayberry admits on the gleaming rush of Forever, while Never Say Die builds a gnarly synth riff over a celestial backdrop. Miracle is most stunning of all, as the three start in 90s rock territory before letting loose a stunning EDM drop, thumping to a witchy conclusion. Never before have CHVRCHES been this awe-inspiringly huge.

Even the weaker tracks written without Kurstin, such as the Doherty-led God’s Plan and the quavering ballad Really Gone, show CHVRCHES’ pursuit of pop success while refusing to compromise their vision. Don’t be surprised if Love Is Dead seals their superstardom.

Every artist encounters an identity crisis at some point. CHVRCHES have encountered that problem while recording their new album, but rather than blindly searching for a way to counteract it, they've embraced it. CHVRCHES mature in their honest new album Love Is Dead, facing their changing lives and relationships with brutal simplicity. The feelings expressed in the record are not trying to hide behind metaphor and complexity, but rather they flow as a form of stream of consciousness. What makes it so strong overall is the fact that you can connect to it as it comes to you, and not only will it revive some of these painful ideas, but it'll resolve them all the same. It's a breakup album set out to heal by telling nothing but the truth.

one. Weighty with fiery pessimism, like a Jenny Holzer mantra etched angrily into a slab of stone, it’s a starting point that doesn’t leave a lot of space for hope. Or so you’d think, anyway. In the case of CHVRCHES’ third album, the statement comes with a silent, but enormous, question mark. Leaving behind their native Glasgow, jetting off Stateside to record with pop powerhouse Greg Kurstin (their first time working with an outside producer), and turning the personal towards the political, the band have instead made a record that investigates whether love is worth saving again in these dark political times.

You sense that, approaching ‘Love Is Dead,’ CHVRCHES were also keen for a shake-up. Their debut album ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’ was a flawless blend of super-shiny synth-pop and grittier foundations. Refreshing the indie landscape, an endless procession of lesser imitators followed in CHVRCHES’ wake. Their stadium-baying successor came from a similar sonic world – but if the debut was a small-town art cinema, ‘Every Open Eye’ was the gigantic IMAX 3D experience. To play an even larger version of their calling-card for a third time running would’ve been complacent, so it’s a relief to hear CHVRCHES finding a different voice and a saltier edge on ‘Love Is Dead’.

Lauren Mayberry – who has long mastered the art of colourfully abstract lyrics born from her own personal perspective – has never been more explicit or outward-looking than on ‘Graves’. “Leaving bodies in stairwells and washing up on the shore,” she sings atop deceptively chipper synths and crisp snares, clearly alluding to last year’s Grenfell Tower tragedy and the European refugee crisis. “Oh baby, you can look away while they’re dancing on our graves, but I will stop at nothing,” goes the chorus.

Elsewhere ‘Love Is Dead’ takes a subtler tact, but the shift in perspective holds fast. While ‘Get Out’ and ‘Forever’ seem like falling-out-of-love songs at first glance, they’re also vessels for a wider exploration of taking ownership of your actions – kind or cruel – and moving forward in a more loving way. “I will always think I’m right, but I always regret the night I told you I would hate you ‘til forever,” Mayberry sings on ‘Forever’, admitting guilt and resolve in a single sentence. In these times, it would be surprising to find the band looking inward, and ‘Love Is Dead’ manages to balance hopeful, utopian pop with a darker, gloomier undercurrent. Love may not be dead after all, but if you ask CHVRCHES, the onus is on all of us to try and keep it alive.