CHVRCHES – Recover

Singles / Words

23 Mar 13



CHVRCHES manage to align sumptuous big-beat-80s sounds with poppy, punchy production qualities similar to the likes of Delphic, before they completely lost the plot. There’s lifeblood pumping through the veins of this Scottish Electro duo which is straight-up and sincere – measured with precision.

The energy other similar groupings put into scene-y pretence with CHVRCHES manifests in simple non-clap-trap pop, not dissimilar from Niki & the Dove and a plethora of other wide ranging artists who land with timed precision which becomes their foundation.

“The BBC Sound Of” nominees have pulled through, populating a rare realm encompassing music people and normal people. This isn’t the MOST intricately attentive of records; but that’s hardly the point.

Like their hit ‘The Mother We Share’ – which landed the trio in the BBC’s Sound of 2013 list – Chvrches’ new single is an electropop battering ram.

Taped in a Glaswegian basement by two indie journeymen and a former journalist, ‘Recover’ is the sound of a roughly-hewn congregation from a proud cultural cityscape – and a surprisingly stately sound at that.

There’s no fewer than three synth lines; it’s said that the live shows are a tour de force of bone-shaking electronic hooks. But, from the track’s simple structure to Lauren Mayberry’s staccato vocals, it’s all rather stiff; there’s a want of some occasional virtuosity, even levity.

CHVRCHES Lauren Mayberry’s vocals have an innocent childlike quality to them which helps draw you in over the Electro-pop vibe synthing around in the background.

The music is what you would expect from this genre but the vocal style with its Scottish twang and clear resonance adds elegance to the music.

The artwork on the front of the EP has a Russian Avant-Garde feel about it. Stalin apparently hated that style of art but I bet he would have loved to have been in an Electro-pop band if he could have.

He would have had the Keytar player secretly killed, nicked his instrument and declared himself Lead Singer/Supreme Ruler of the band. And he couldn’t even play a Keytar. Fucking Stalin.