"An ode to the horror film genre"- Chvrches 'Screen Violence' Review
Chvrches performing in Edinburgh- photo by Lucette Woods
Chvrches fourth studio album ‘Screen violence’ is an ode to the horror film genre. It's a hard concept to miss with the album title. The slasher film aesthetic cover features a hand grasping on a screen under a blood coloured filter and references to horror films such as Nightmare on Elm Street littered throughout the album’s lyrics.
Despite the horror theme, the Scottish trio haven’t ventured from their synth-pop style and indietronica sound. The album opens with the cinematic ‘Asking for a friend’ showcasing some of singer Lauren Mayberry’s most brutally honest lyrics: “I cheated and I lied/ but I meant it when I cried.”
Lead single ‘He said She said’ tackles gendered expectations. The song cleverly uses auto-tune to replicate two different voices, and uses echoes to replicate voices inside someone’s head, while the rhythmic bass on ‘California’ evokes a hazy image of a Californian dream. The illusion shattered with Mayberry’s melancholic lyrics and sage advice: “No one ever tells ya/ There’s freedom in failure.”
‘How Not To Drown’ is a stand-out track, not only for its special guest appearance of The Cure’s Robert Smith, but for its haunting urgency.
‘Final Girl’ sounds like its straight out of a horror film with its creepy synth melody with the lyrics dealing with clichés found in horror films: “In the final scene/There’s a final girl/ And you know she should be screaming now.”
The album finishes with the poignant ‘Better If You Don’t’ which, unusually for Chvrches, is a guitar led track. Instrumentalist Martin Doherty, wrote on Twitter about the track: “I wrote the demo on a rainy day in Los Angeles. I was missing Glasgow. Then Lauren came in with lyrics and I missed Glasgow even more.”
Slotting perfectly into Chvrches’ discography, ‘Screen Violence’ is a captivating thematic album which gets better and more infectious with each listen.
Chvches ‘Screen Violence’ review ★★★★☆