CHVRCHES have shared their fourth studio album, Screen Violence, out now via Glassnote (US). The band are also set to perform an intimate live show tonight from the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery which will be livestreamed globally from 9pm PT on Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. Tune in HERE.
Screen Violence features previously released singles “He Said She Said,” “How Not To Drown” featuring one of the band’s musical heroes The Cure’s Robert Smith, and “Good Girls” which was recently remixed by the iconic film director and legendary actor, screenwriter and composer John Carpenter. The official accompanying videos for these singles formed a lo-fi, nostalgic, and analogue-inspired trilogy directed by multi-disciplinary artist Scott Kiernan.
This week, Lauren Mayberry spoke with host Carmel Holt for Sonos’s Sheroes Mixtape Memoir Episode 12 – titled “Be The Shirley You Want To See In The World”. Lauren talks about her favorite female vocalists and finding her own voice within a heavily male music scene, saying “If you manage to get through the door, you have to wedge the door open for other people.” She also shared the music that made her including Whitney Houston, Jimmy Eat World, Depeche Mode, and many more. Listen HERE.
On Wednesday, the band appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a stunning rooftop performance of their single “Good Girls.” Watch below.
To experience 2020 was to experience something of screen violence. It was to struggle to make the people you loved feel more real than the characters on TV shows, and to experience a world of trauma and tumult as if it was another TV show. 2021, however, marks a decade together for Iain Cook, Martin Doherty, and Lauren Mayberry – a decade whose sound they have helped to create and define.
In their new album Screen Violence – originally conceived as a name for the band, but revived for the album ten years later and during a pandemic when the reality of screen violence has never been more pertinent – they narrate the theme of screen violence in three main forms: on screen, by screens and through screens, touching on feelings of loneliness, disillusionment, fear, heartbreak and regret, and describing both the days of the Video Nasty and the power the screens all around us wield today. Perhaps ironically, or not ironic at all, the album was recorded almost entirely remotely between Los Angeles and Glasgow where they self-produced and mixed the album via video calls and audio sharing programs to create something that is unique and special, but inherently CHVRCHES.
“I think for me it was helpful to go into the process with the idea that I could write something escapist almost,” Mayberry says of the album. “That felt freeing initially, to have concepts and stories to weave your own feelings and experiences through but in the end, all the lyrics were definitely still personal.” While Martin Doherty adds, “To me, the screen aspect was a bit more literal. When we were making the record, it was like half of our lives were lived through screens. What began as a concept was now a lifeline.”
UPCOMING NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:
11/09/21 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
11/10 – 11/12/21 Austin, TX – ACL Live
11/14/21 Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
11/15/21 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
11/17/21 Minneapolis, MN – Armory
11/18/21 Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater
11/19/21 Chicago, IL – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
11/20/21 Columbus, OH – Express Live!
11/22/21 Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
11/23/21 Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre
11/24/21 Toronto, ON – History
11/26/21 New York, NY – Terminal 5
11/27/21 New York, NY – Terminal 5
11/30/21 Washington, DC – Anthem
12/01/21 Boston, MA – House of Blues
12/02/21 New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall
12/03/21 Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall
12/05/21 Cincinnati, OH – Ovation
12/06/21 St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
12/08/21 Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
12/09/21 Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
12/10/21 Salt Lake City, UT – Union
12/11/21 Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl
12/13/21 San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
12/14/21 San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
12/16/21 San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
12/17/21 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
12/18/21 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
