As sweet and innocent as Lauren’s voice may sound, she’s dealing with some hurt here, or at the very least some strong ambivalence, struggling to keep her mouth shut as she deals with a family member whose actions she finds contemptible. A clap-happy rhythmic intro settles into more of a mid-tempo groove, and suddenly the mood is like a high school dance in a John Hughes movie (an analogy I borrowed from The Hawk in Paris– another worthy musical companion for those who enjoy Chvrches’ style). Snippets of Lauren’s vocals are played back like notes on a keyboards, the stuttering effect providing the song’s main hook. Right out of the gate, the group hits us with one of their most memorable pop songs. If I’d discovered Chvrches while it was still 2013, I’m almost 100% sure that this album would have ended up in my top five, but getting to it late may have been what I needed, because this album has been seriously brightening up the mild, gloomy, grey season that we here in Los Angeles like to call “winter”. This is honestly the sort of album that I wish Metric or Lights would make – though it may be a bit too subversive for fans of Lights, I guess. In that sense, their dynamic is much like that of The Echoing Green‘s most recent material – just flip the gender dynamic of that band on its head and you’ve got a reasonably good starting point (though again, without the religious overtones). It’s one of those things where you might not even realize a song is about something depressing, or perhaps even a bit violent, due to the perky melody and the constant motion of the synths and drum pads. But they’re also not interested in being vulgar or relying on shock factor – dysfunctional relationships seem to take up the bigger slices of the pie, with a few tracks left over for moody navel-gazing and maybe even a bit of genuine sentimentality. The two f-bombs dropped in the lyrics of the two otherwise sweet-sounding opening tracks on this album should tip you off to at least that much. If I had to describe the content of Chrvches’ songs, the first thing I would tell you is that they’re definitely not a religious band. (Lauren’s response to rather lewd comments made on social media by some of her supposed “fans” should indicate quite clearly that she’s not interested in playing the sex symbol game.) Bands with a woman up front tend to get marketed as “the girl plus some nameless faces” nowadays, and Chvrches has actively resisted this, building a fanbase on the synergy of their performances, not on the potential sex appeal of their frontwoman. Their interchangeable dynamic, with confident frontwoman Lauren Mayberry backed by multi-instrumental wizards Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, is intoxicating, and I like that they’re able to change things up by bringing one of the guys up front for a track or two, or for a vocal hook or lyrical snippet in one of her songs. The Bones of What You Believe may well be one of those “perfect pop albums” that just doesn’t quit – from the delectable melodies of some of its biggest signals, to the dancefloor fury of some of its darker tracks, to the occasional chill moment where a guitar riff or a sea of vocal samples slowly washes over the listener, there are hardly any dull moments throughout its twelve tracks. In the early days of January, with not a lot of exciting new music on the horizon, I noticed Chvrches on a lot of year-end lists, wondered if their mostly keyboard and sample-driven take on synthpop would be up my alley, and decided to give their debut album a go. Usually I don’t find them this early, though. There are always several breakout bands each year that I kick myself for not paying attention to until the following year, when it’s too late to go back and cram them into the slots they deserve on my year-end lists. In Brief: With a haunting undercurrent beneath their deceptively chirpy exterior, the debut from this Scottish synthpop trio makes a solid case for the validity of laptop-driven music.
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