Review Summary: PVRIS have uncommon maturity in the way they write choruses and structure their music, but they still haven't reached their peak yet.
From the opening of "Heaven”, it's clear that PVRIS is somehow different. They're smarter and more complex than most bands, their music has emotional depth, and they refuse to stick to one genre. “Heaven” is an example; it starts off as a piano ballad, and rather than slowly build throughout, goes right to the climax, with thundering drums and a thrilling reverb-heavy guitar solo midway through. Sure, about half the song lyrically is the titular line –
you took my heaven aWAaAaaAAAAAyyyy - but there's enough going on (interlocking guitars, vocoders, a buried but memorable bassline) to justify hearing that line over and over again.
Though "Heaven" was stunning, it's actually one of the more conventional songs on the album. While the ten songs here are ultimately traditionally structured, there is enough diversity in their influences and arrangements to make up for that. Even as their tricks can sound familiar - lots of bands call-back to themselves over the course of an album, lots of bands change genres on a whim - there's something different. Not just "they do it particularly well", but "they almost certainly have a masterpiece in them."
Especially in their more accessible cuts like the R&B-tinged "Same Soul" or the 12/8 bounce of "Winter", the potential seems limitless. The way they blend their raw emotions with increasingly slick production is reminiscent of oft-mentioned comparison Paramore when they were finding their footing. PVRIS also will change direction unexpectedly, whether going half-time at the climax of "Anyone Else" or switching to a dance beat two-thirds through "What's Wrong". It's impressive the amount of energy and variety they get into a studio recording, even in the slower songs scattered throughout the album. Frontwoman Lyndsey Gunnulfsen (usually shortened to Lynn Gunn) has a hand in just about every aspect of the album's creation, and together with producer Blake Harnage, they bend whatever genre they feel like to their will.
Looking at the album credits gives a sense of who PVRIS is now, and who they may become. Aside from Gunn's overwhelming presence, legendary engineers Mark "Spike" Stent and Rich Costey make appearances on the liner notes. The two of them have both separately mixed records for Muse and fellow allograph-lovers CHVRCHES (as well as literally hundreds of others) - while it would be ignoring PVRIS' roots in hardcore music to call the band a synthesis of the two groups, seeing those kinds of big names behind the scenes further betrays the band's ambition, as if the actual music left any doubt.
The thing is, they're so close, but not yet there. Among the weak spots are, unfortunately, some of the lyrics. Lynn can often have affecting turns of phrase ("I was your be all end all/Isn't that pitiful?"), but words like 'fire', 'blood', and 'touch' make repeated appearances, to the point where it sometimes feels disappointingly redundant. Even the constant gruesome imagery about bodies, initially powerful, starts to feel numbing after multiple listens to the album.
The only real misstep is "No Mercy", which seems to harken back to their post-hardcore roots and for all its bluster, falls flat in the context of the album. Most of these songs go well above four minutes, but at just under four “Mercy” feels longer than anything else, with unmemorable verses and a chorus that's strong but pales in comparison to other songs. They recover quickly with the trip-hoppy Separate, suggesting they might be even better the sparser they get. Closer "Nola 1" veers a little too close to the pop side of their sound, with a filtered, weirdly funky guitar riff clashing with more dramatic ambience, but Lynn's brutally honest lyrics about processing an abusive relationship and its effects on her self-image make it work.
PVRIS have uncommon maturity in the way they write choruses and structure their music, but they still haven't reached their peak yet. Clearly, there are many routes they can go down, and none of them would be bad choices. If anything, PVRIS prove themselves as a band worth rooting for, one that's already transcended their influences, and is hopefully on their way to something monumental.
