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MUSIC FEATURE
Open Eye by
es is out September 25
ation.
explains. “You can lose a bit of perspective,
and you end up making one of these trash-
sounding albums. You know the kind I’m
talking about – the ones that are all just big,
slow chords and giant drums. I think we were
first and foremost focused on what the record
needed. I’m pleased to say that when you
come up for air after you’ve written all these
songs, that’s when you start thinking, ooh,
woah, this could be a great live moment.”
And those occasions so far – across the tour
for 2013 debut The Bones of What You Believe
as well as various festival appearances this
year – have been huge. The Bones tour was
notoriously heavy (two years long, averaging a
gig every second day) and dealt a rapid lesson
in how to cope.
“I think we’ve probably experienced every
conceivable point on the scale of the range
of emotions,” Doherty chuckles. “I guess
that’s what happens when you effectively just
live out your life on tour. But that was about
committing to the project, so that we didn’t
look back on that first album, or this one even,
in five or ten years time, and say: ‘If only
we’d have worked harder, we could have had
a chance.’ You have to throw yourself into it,
otherwise you end up wondering [about] that
stuff. And I guess that even if it had been a
failure, no one could have said that we
didn’t try.”
Late this month Chvrches have a very
small performance scheduled at The Dome in
London (capacity: 600), and they’re allocating
tickets by ballot. This was a really deliberate
way to counter the monstrous shows the
group have been completing in festival and
stadium settings.
“I’m glad we were able to ballot the
tickets, that was really important for us,”
Doherty says. “The touting in the UK
is totally out of control – I don’t know
what ticket touting is called in Australia…
scalping? You get these people buying up
tickets and then selling at inflated prices.
This is our way of trying to combat it:
keeping the tickets minimal and doing it by
ballot. On a personal level, we want to do
whatever we can to help prevent it, and
also that way it’s really the fans of the band
that hear about the show.”
Whether you’re a diehard who tramples the
weak to get tickets to the intimate shows, or a
new fan who might’ve caught the band as part of
a festival roster, the honesty in the album’s flow
will be difficult to resist. “This whole record just
poured out,” Doherty says. “I guess if you tour
for two years and you don’t hardly see the inside
of the studio, you’ve got a lot of stuff to get out
when you finally get there.” Amen.
You have to throw
yourself into it,
otherwise you end
up wondering
Chvrches (L-R) Iain Cook, Martin Doherty, Lauren Mayberry
Clearest Blue
Fat chance getting this one out
of your head. It begins with a
very Only You (Yazoo) arpeggio
synth, but bursts into a churning,
bittersweet lament that is rather
Just Can’t Get Enough (Depeche
Mode).
High Enough To
CarryYou Over
Doherty is lead vocalist here,
and his voice carries a very
different, plaintive quality of
emotion compared to Mayberry’s
− behold his sweetly mumbled
delivery of the lead lyric, “I never
would’ve given you up/ if you
only hadn’t given me up.”
Never Ending
Circles
It sounds just like its title, with
coiling glisses of synth and a
super compelling, hopeful vocal
melody.
Down Side Of Me
If the Aqua comparison put you
off, listen to this one and you'll
understand: Mayberry's girl power
shines through on this sweet
ballad.
Leave A Trace
Moving and robust but still so
pretty, the chorus lyric of "Take
care to tell it just how it was" is
pure, tender power.
Every
Open
Eye
Top
Hymns
from
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