Chvrches share new song ‘Over’
Scottish electro-pop rockers Chvrches have spent nearly two years away. The band released their fourth studio album, Screen Violence, back in the summer of 2021. They’ve been busy in the meantime, however, departing their longtime label Glassnote Records and signing with Island Records last year. A new record deal means the new music gears are turning, and today we’re getting a brand new Chvrches song.
‘Over’ is more atmospheric than the band’s usual material. Backed up by a static drum sample that keeps everything in line, Lauren Mayberry sings about “endless nights and neon lights” in a fantastically flashy near-fever dream. Mayberry returns to the well of bad romance, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The band’s third album is called Love is Dead, after all.
The song isn’t quite as gothic and techno-heavy as Screen Violence was. There are flashes of the earlier synthpop era of the band, especially when Martin Doherty’s voice comes in to fill out the track. Doherty stepped away from the mic on Screen Violence (minus a background appearance on ‘Violent Delights’). Before that point, Doherty was always a foil to Mayberry’s titanic lead vocals, even getting some highlight leads on songs like ‘You Caught the Light’ and ‘High Enough to Carry You Over’. It’s weirdly essential to the band’s sound, and it’s always to hear it back in the mix.
According to the band, ‘Over’ is meant to make a clean break from the Screen Violence era. “’Over’ is a song that we wrote with Oscar Holter, a producer we really respect and admire,” the band wrote in a statement. “Normally, we collect songs over the course of months (or years!) until we have an album’s worth of material, but this time we just wanted to release something we were excited about and give the fans something new to mark the end of the Screen Violence era, and the start of whatever the next CHVRCHES chapter might be.”
Although they retain their signature synthpop sound, the influences and reference points on each Chvrches album are completely different. There’s always intricate layering and a delicate precision in their songs, but whether the band are going for straight-up pop, 1980s horror, or futuristic apocalypses, Chvrches are pros at bringing unique settings to each of their albums. That makes it really exciting to wonder what ‘Over’ means for the band’s next record.
Check out the audio for ‘Over’ down below.
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