Review Summary: Filling up the silence with an organ sound.
Although the nature of
Screen Violence's recording and production cycle was kind of a COVID-forced necessity, I nevertheless find it very interesting that CHVRCHES' fourth record was mostly recorded remotely, the Scottish synthpop trio sharing ideas behind the comfort and safety of their screens between two different countries entirely. As isolating and lonely as I'm sure that could have been at times, the fact that
Screen Violence's best moments are actually deeply intimate, colorful, and naturalistic is a testament to the genuine chemistry and artistry shared between CHRVRCHES' members.
Album opener and crown jewel "Asking For A Friend" is an absolute delight, easily one of the best pop songs penned this year. It transforms from a slow-burning "Nothing Compares 2 U"-esque introduction with held synth pads and Lauren Mayberry's light, crisp, mezzo-soprano vocals before gradually rising in energy and tension, the early verses dominated by heavenly arpeggios, handclaps, and distant, icy synths that all crescendo into a pristine, explosive breakdown in the middle. It's bittersweet, it's exciting, it's drenched in phosphorescence that brings warmth to heartwrenching lines like "
Can we celebrate the end? I'm asking for a friend", and it's a banger opener that ensures the album hits the ground running right out the gate.
Screen Violence is full of similar electronica delights throughout - "Violent Delights" is dominated by a booming, Amen Break-y drum beat, swelling chords, and submerged, bass-heavy verses that brings to mind the works of Crystal Castles. The moody, wavering "California" is an evocative burst of dream pop ("
There's freedom in the failure" is such a good line), "Good Girls" is a reverb-saturated foray into synthwave with an absolutely enormous hook that's just begging to be used in a magenta-drenched, neon-vector aesthetic video, and the low-key, simple beat and rhythmic acoustic guitars of "Better If You Don't" bring to mind a surprisingly coherent blend between Fleetwood Mac - especially with achingly sincere lyrics like "
Drinking to the things I can't take back" - and Carly Rae Jepsen.
The darker moments of this record slap so hard it makes me wish the LP dipped its toes into a darker pool more often - "How Not To Drown" is a rugged, sinister track with a surprisingly tasteful Robert Smith feature whose haunting sound feels like Paramore, Evanascence, and The Cure in a gothic, wailing blender, and "Nightmares" is a twitchy-yet-resonant techno-pop song whose menacing, distorted guitars, gloomy pianos, and explosive hook threatens to push this record into goth-rock territory. These moments are so fulfilling and genuine that it makes one wish there were less songs like the pleasant-but-inoffensive "Lullabies", whose promising, ghostly piano riff is quickly discarded for more generic, inspirational electropop fare, or "He Said She Said", a boilerplate "hit single"-type song that sounds like a pretty, but bland, Zedd-and-Carly Rae Jepsen collaboration that never saw the light of day with its big, dance-pop beat and the "Call Me Maybe"-esque string sections and melodic synth embellishments.
Still, it's good. It's quite good, in fact - the most delightful things about
Screen Violence are CHVRCHES' intriguing tweaks and alterations to songs with simple, straightforward templates, as well as its' surprisingly sad and heartfelt lyrics that bulk the bright-faced tracks up with depth and intimacy. Even disregarding how lifeless and unengaging
Screen Violence's predecessor,
Love Is Dead, was, there's a lot of genuine good to be found here, with charismatic and easily-likable songs that show CHVRCHES getting back on their feet after a momentary dry spell and making music like they used to.
