'Pick Any Number, Choose Any Colour': A Week with 'The Bones of What You Believe'

Irony and sarcasm are overrated. Both have a place in art, literature, music, and movies, and correct, effective use can be powerful; but I feel sometimes in the day-to-day these two have been beaten to death. So maybe 'overused' or 'overtired' would be a more correct word for how I feel. I'm very much guilty of some of the proliferation of these two bed-fellows and for that I do apologize to all of you reading and the universe at large. Irony is easy, especially in a cultural and social context, and sarcasm is even easier; but I'm determined to give these two sometime to rest and recoup. I've started to notice a subtle, cultural change across a lot of media lately; a slight turning away from the double-edged ease of irony and sarcasm to trying to find more effective ways of connecting. Chvrches' (pronounced simply 'churches') debut album, 'The Bones of What You Believe', is a wonderful bear-hug of a record that embraces wholeheartedly the musical legacy of synthpop and the last 40-odd years of electronic pop music and boils it all down to an effective, exciting, and most importantly, genuine album.  

Chvrches are a Scottish synthpop group comprised of Ian Cook (synths, guitar & occasional vocals) Martin Doherty (synths & occasional vocals), and Lauren Mayberry (lead vocals & some synths on the side) and over the past year their hook-heavy, vocal-driven, catchy electropop has seen them skyrocket to success. Taking various touchstones from electronic pop music - the kinetic and muscular beats of early Depeche Mode, the shimmering arpeggios of The Knife, the bombastic expansiveness of M83, the vocal-driven pop wizardry of Robyn, and many more - Chvrches expertly distills all these elements and this electro-heritage into something all it's own. 'The Bones of What You Believe' is a great example of what a pop record can be (putting the electronic bit aside for the moment); full of emotion, catchy choruses, and vocals that keep you coming back for more. What I think is wonderful about Chvrches is that they have so enthusiastically embraced this pop-side of their music even though they have been dwelling more thus far in the indie-sphere. I've said it before, but 'Pop' isn't a dirty word and Chvrches has become a sort of banner-carrier for that cause within 'serious' music/music critique and it delights me to no end. That Chvrches was able to display this sort of musical confidence and know-how right out of the gate on their debut is what makes 'The Bones of What You Believe' such a treat and breath of fresh air.

Lauren Mayberry's vocals serve has the focal point of much of the record. Crystal clear and vibrant, Mayberry is able to carry each song on the record (save the two where the lads take over vocal duties) with skill and emotion. She is really the cog in Chvrches that makes it all click. Her subtle and adept delivery song after song allows some pretty awesomely subversive lyrics to creep into the mix. As befitting a pop album, most of the lyrics deal with relationships and love; but 'The Bones of What You Believe' is all about relationships gone south and is full of great, almost revenge tunes like Gun and Lies. Mayberry is able to weave these lyrics into bouncing, shimmering synthpop songs so effortlessly that on first brush with most of them you may miss the darker lyrical content amongst all the glittering electro. But it works, and works extremely well. 

Of course all this gushing and praise-heaping that I've been doing for the past few paragraphs would be moot if the tunes weren't good. But fortunately for all of us, here again, Chvrches deliver in a big way. The one-two punch of the opening track, The Mother We Share, leading into We Sink, is a wonderful 6 minutes of pop heaven that I repeated more times than I can count over the past week. After that the hits really just keep coming with the slow build of Tether and propulsive beat of Lies and soaring vocals of Recover; it was hard for me to pin down a track I really didn't like. At 48 minutes, 'The Bones of What You Believe' is by no means a long record but perhaps one that could have benefitted from a bit of trimming to keeping its pop-y nature that much more zippy. Looking back over the track-list, the only song that really failed to leave a lasting impression on me was Night Sky, not a bad song by any means but a pretty forgettable one; and perhaps shaving those 4 minutes off the runtime of the record would have helped it sail even more. But Night Sky is really only a gripe because I'm trying to find fault with a record that I've had nothing but a blast with over the past week.

Chvrches are not the grand-indie-pop saviors of music they may have been touted to be, and I think they are more than happy not to be placed in that role. They are simply three people from Glasgow who set out to make an earnest, straight-forward, killer synthpop record. They have succeeded with great and admirable confidence and self-assurance that is not common in much new music today. All of this praise that I and others are heaping on them is all well and good, but at the end of the day, it's the songs that do the real talking and 'The Bones of What You Believe' speaks for itself.

The Breakdown:
Stand-Outs: The Mother We Share, We Sink, Gun, Recover
Let-Downs: Night Sky
Rating: 9/10

Up Next: We are going to travel way, way back this week (thanks to another helpful recommendation) to the 1720s with Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Brandenburg Concertos'. It is high time to spend some quality time with classical music outside the context of Looney Tunes; should be an excellent week.