CHVRCHES - "Screen Violence" (2021)

CHVRCHES' first two records were two really great, emotional and introspective synth pop albums featuring gruff and jagged sounding synths and vocal manipulations on Lauren Mayberry's strident voice that gave them a real bite to them compared to a lot of the 2010's 80's nostalgia groups. However with their third album, 2018's Love Is Dead, they shifted to making more mainstream pop with Lauren looking more outwardly for lyrical inspiration and they shipped off production to pop super-producer Greg Kurstin. These changes completely stripped the band of their personality, with the lyrics coming off bland and repetitive, and the music behind them really edgeless.

However I'm glad to say that CHVRCHES are back. From the opening moments of Asking For A Friend you can just tell the band have gone back to what they know best, self-produced edgy and immediate instrumentals and dense and detailed lyrics about Lauren Mayberry's personal experiences in the world. Asking For A Friend is also one of CHVRCHES' best songs. It's self-questioning, yet self-assured; and deals with a fractured and sour friendship that has fallen apart. All this tension and hurt builds throughout the track until it crashes down into a dance breakdown that the band do so well.

Much of the record has taken on a slight horror aesthetic, with darker more graphic lyrics that refer to the likes of death and disappearance and nightmares. To accompany this, the band has leaned more heavily into the darker side of their influences, the likes of Depeche Mode and The Cure. This gives the record more of an alternative rock element compared to their past releases that works well within the band's dynamic. Tracks like California and Violent Delights are built more around their guitar and drum parts, with the layers of synths as an additional varnish on the songs. Violent Delights in particular is build around a driving and grizzly breakbeat, with the cinematic layers of guitars and synths creating a massive and overwhelming sound to accompany the lyrics detailing graphic, off-putting dreams and recurring nightmares.

The record builds to its gigantic centrepiece, the melodramatic and monolithic How Not To Drown featuring Robert Smith of The Cure. It's a fairly long tune for CHVRCHES, that slowly builds to a climactic bridge with both Lauren and Robert pouring their hearts out over thick syrup-y guitars and waves of washing synths that make you feel like your falling deeper and deeper into the songs atmosphere. This is followed by Final Girl, the song that sounds the most like The Cure on the record. The reverb-gated drums and whining guitars sound straight out of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The track deals with the idea of choices and life decisions, and whether there is some final version of yourself that is truly happy and accomplished. The track switches to a major key for the choruses and provides a great dynamic between the reality of what is and the fantasy of what could be.

Unfortunately, the record does have a few flaws. At points it does feel a little too blown out and over-produced, particularly the drums on some of the songs. For example the song Nightmares, which I quite like the song at its core, is so loud and full that Lauren's voice comes of like it's fighting for space against everything else. It sounds like she is shouting, but without any of the body and weight behind it. The singles (other than How Not To Drown) are also not great. He Said She Said has really ugly super blown out drums and uninspired lyrics that read like a Wikipedia definition of gaslighting. It's a frustrating song because Lauren written far better and more nuanced songs about similar topics before. Good Girls isn't quite as bad, but follows a very run of the mill pop chord progression and structure, with quite a repetitive chorus as well. However it does feature the line "They say I cut my teeth on weaker men", which is delivered with a level of sass which makes me smirk.

The album does end on a real high point though, the stripped back ballad about betrayal, Better If You Don't. Lauren delivers the lyrics with a sense of real pain and hurt, the kind of deflation when you give up on someone. The track slowly picks itself up, as the tempo increases and the chiming guitars provide a cathartic release.

Screen Violence is a record that I want to like more than I do, because it contains some of CHVRCHES best songs to date. However a couple of dud singles and slightly excessive production hold it back slightly compared to the band's first two records. I'm glad they're back on form and looking forward to the darker direction they seem to be heading in.

Top Tracks: Asking For A Friend, California, Violent Delights, How Not To Drown, Final Girl, Better If You Don't

7/10

black midi - "Cavalcade" (2021)

 

black midi burst onto the scene in 2019 with Schlagenheim, a mesmerising collision of post-punk, noise rock and experimental rock that was attention grabbing if a little too over the top and headache inducing. They have returned with their sophomore record, Cavalcade, which while retaining the core of the band's identity also takes some drastic sonic changes which I personally think have really paid off.

Gone are most of the harshest post-hardcore and noise rock tendancies, instead the band opt to incorporate orchestral and jazz instrumentation to fill out the cacophonous walls of sound that is characteristic of their style. What results is a record that can be equally as loud as Schlagenheim, but nowhere near as draining due to the sheer colour and verity of not just tracks, but individual sections of tracks also. The dynamics of these songs also feel far more loose and natural than on the debut, swelling into climaxes and ebbing back into spaces to catch your breath, as opposed to the whiplash nature of the first record.

Furthermore, Cavalcade feels like a tighter, more structured album. The sequencing gives each of the 8 tracks a sense of place and purpose. The first half matches the louder, more intense moments with ones that let you catch your breath; and the second half progresses from the gentle and serene post-rock of Diamond Stuff, through the progressively louder Dethroned into Hogwash and Balderdash which is as loud and colourful as the first few tracks. All of this leads into the final track, Ascending Forth, which is a grand theatrical finish for the record. It has a more intentional structure and flow the Schlagenheim which only adds to it's listenability.

The record opens with John L, which is probably the most brash and in your face song on the record. It feels very much like a mission statement, as if black midi are announcing their new sound. It comes crashing in with a complex, jarring rhythm and syncopated strings that produce so much tension. It then judders and rolls into the first section of vocals on the record; which Geordie Greep has taken a different approach than on the first album. While still bizarre and detached, they're not quite as intensely insane as the first record, which I think I prefer. He sounds more like some kind of profit of the apocalypse rather than a madman on here. The track then switches between this initial rhythmic section and a couple of quieter jazz and post-rock inspired sections that constantly mixes things up. The following track, Marlene Dietrich, couldn't be further from this. It's a loose and classical inspired art rock tune that's fairly straightforward in the grand scheme of the album.

Chondromalacia Patella is returns to the complex grooves of John L, but instead of throwing it all in our faces at once, it slowly builds and builds to a complete cacophony of sound and noise that somewhat comically ends in the sound of a whistling bomb. The slow linear build of the song allows for time to appreciate all of its elements and makes it probably my favourite of the entire record. Slow doubles down on the hypnotic grooves and jazzier elements, being subtler and more reserved than the tracks that come before it while still being quite frantic and manic.

The multi song build from Diamond Stuff through Hogwash and Balderdash is really great sequencing in my opinion that reinforces each of the tracks qualities. Diamond Stuff is beautiful and meditative while still being quite eerie and off-putting, and is a perfect moment to reset in the middle of the album after the manic first half. It slowly gains more traction as it progresses, blossoming into this really ethereal groove that sounds like some sort of awakening for the character of the track. This is quickly shifted up a gear by Dethroned, the most straightfoward post-punk the record gets. It grows noisier and messier as it goes and is the closest thing to Schlagenheim on the album. It works as a breath of fresh air from the more technical, proggier stuff that makes up everything else here. The chaotic and complex rhythms return with Hogwash and Balderdash, looping it back round to the start of the record before the big finale. 

Ascending Forth works as a big theatrical closer, but I haven't really been able to connect with it. I think it's due to the track coming across like a bit of an in joke within the scene, much like some of the moments on the Black Country, New Road record I reviewed earlier this year. Greep repeatedly sings "everybody loves ascending fourths", taking the piss out of the common music trope while also conveying the idea of some sort of heavenly ascension with the synonym in the title. Unfortunately it doesn't really land for me.

Aside from a couple of moments, this record builds on Schlagenheim in every way. It's better constructed, impressively technical and feels like it has more heart to it, being less reliant on attention grabbing gimmicks. The collision of Jazz and Classical with post-punk and progressive rock is really impressive. However I do feel that black midi are still a band that I admire rather than love, and for a lot of people I know the lack of any relatability will be a huge turn off. But for anyone already onboard, Cavalcade shows the band growing into something really quite special.

Top Tracks: John L, Chondromalacia Patella, Slow, Diamond Stuff, Dethroned, Hogwash and Balderdash

8/10