CHVRCHES — The Bones of What You Believe


Virgin · Goodbye | discogs.com
Like a radiator, but instead of radiating heat it radiates joy


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The Bones of What You Believe was ranked third in my Top Ten Albums I Wrote About in 2016



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From the Pet Shop Boys to the Presets, detachment and irony have formed the cold, dysphoric core of electropop music since time immemorial. Enter CHVRCHES in a blaze of positivity. The Glaswegian trio upturned decades of precedent with their euphoric debut album The Bones of What You Believe.

They have created a maximalist masterpiece. Layers upon layers of bright, shining synthesisers serve not to suppress emotion, but to augment it. Thumping drum machines are not some perfunctory metronome, but a veritable heartbeat, pumping polyrhythms and arpeggios.

Frontwoman Lauren Mayberry eschews witticisms and snide observations for direct emotive appeals, her voice a plaintive, primal wail — CHVRCHES are surprisingly yet somehow inevitably indebted to centuries of Scottish folk music. This album radiates pure joy.

CHVRCHES' stellar debut proves that despite the clutter of the modern pop landscape, there is still room for optimism.