Chvrches – ‘The Bones of What You Believe’
For indie rock lifers Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, Chvrches was something of a last resort. The pair met as students at the University of Strathclyde and, despite being nearly a decade apart in age, bonded over their shared taste in music. The two became journeymen of the British (and specifically Scottish) rock scene, pairing back up in the band Aereogramme before that band stalled in 2007. Both men considered leaving music for good when they decided to team up for one final project together.
Initially, Doherty was to be the lead singer of the band, with both musicians taking stabs at genres that they were relatively unfamiliar with: electronica and synth-pop. During the initial stages of the project, Cook began producing an EP for the band Blue Sky Archives and was impressed by the voice of their drummer, Lauren Mayberry. Mayberry was invited to sing backing vocals on a few songs, but when the three came together, Mayberry quickly became the frontwoman.
Alright: typical band formation story over. Backs against the wall, no experience in their given genre, chance meetings, yada yada yada. By most accounts, synth-pop was the right direction to go in the early 2010s. Artists like The Killers and The Postal Service had made synths OK for the indie kids, major stars like Lady Gaga and Owl City were scoring number one hits by using the genre’s DNA, and upstarts like M83 and the Naked and Famous were spearheading the next wave. What could three Scottish rockers with no synth experience add to the genre?
Well, just one of the best indie-synth albums of the decade. The Bones of What You Believe, the group’s debut LP, was a completely unique blast of shimmering soundscapes, creative vocal samples, eerie atmosphere, and palpable pop hooks. Across 12 tracks, Chvrches turn scientific experiences into pure excitement. Merryberry not only stands out as a fantastic singer but also a whip-smart lyricist to boot. Cook and Doherty fill in all the spaces traditionally saved for guitars and acoustic drums with a mix of Minimoogs, MPC Live samplers, and Roland Juno-106 synthesisers.
It’s all on display on the band’s signature song and the album’s opening track, ‘The Mother We Share’. Taking fragments of Mayberry’s voice to create the song’s main hook, Cook and Doherty layer seemingly endless synth lines to create a dense arrangement that feels at once both analogue and futuristic. At the song’s centre, Mayberry lays out a yearning desire for peace and understanding with a (literal or metaphoric) sibling who can’t stop fucking up and eventually crawling back.
For most bands, the sheer power of ‘The Mother We Share’ would threaten to overshadow their entire discography. Luckily, Chvrches proved themselves to be canny songwriters. Mayberry’s combative imagery (better seen in later albums like Love is Dead and Screen Violence) finds a perfect home next to shiny pop hooks on tracks like ‘Gun’, ‘Lies’, and ‘By The Throat’. The album has little in the way of true optimism, but that makes the contrast between lyrics and music all the more interesting.
While crystalline synth-pop tracks like ‘We Sink’ and ‘Night Sky’ seem peppy and jaunty on the surface, Mayberry always makes sure to put in a dagger at the most opportune time. Songs like ‘Tether’ and ‘Lungs’ are all about confusion and unbreakable ties, the kind that doom both parties who find themselves entangled. Even the album’s most amicable love-adjacent track, ‘Recover’, has an ultimate at its core. That makes The Bones of What You Believe a brilliant “bad times” album, whether it is a breakup, a stressful day or even just a stormy night.
Doherty’s role as the band’s original singer comes through when he takes the lead on the tracks ‘Under the Tide’ and ‘You Caught the Light’. The former is the album’s only real optimistic take on relationships, while the latter is a gorgeously open-ended album closer. Whether purposeful or not, Doherty’s vocals continue the strange contrasts between light and dark, containing more hopeful themes while still sounding more sinister than Mayberry’s higher register. Meanwhile, Mayberry’s more welcoming voice is one filled with danger, anger, betrayal, and ferocity.
The synthetic textures and airy qualities of Mayberry’s voice threaten to leave The Bones of What You Believe without any weight or punch. Instead, the album comes out swinging and continues to hit hard throughout its runtime, with new genius melodies and energetic arrangements replacing the ones that came before. When the band decide to get dark, the synths that form the DNA of their music keep things from becoming truly depressing or languid. The Bones of What You Believe is naturally propulsive, even when it slows down the tempos and strips back the artifice.
But more than anything else, The Bones of What You Believe is just so much goddamn fun to listen to. As Chvrches have continued on in their career, they’ve experimented with new sounds, new themes, and new aesthetics. But the simplicity of The Bones of What You Believe has remained untouched and unrivalled. When they were at their most naïve, Chvrches were at their best. There was nothing to lose and an entire world to be gained. All they had were a few vintage synths, some great songs, and the notion that this was the right direction to go in. The result was The Bones of What You Believe, an engrossing trip that still remains the band’s masterpiece.
