STACK NZ Sep #66

FEATURE

MUSIC

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.”

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.”

Top Hymns from

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

You have to throw yourself into it, otherwise you end up wondering

Chvrches (L-R) Iain Cook, Martin Doherty, Lauren Mayberry

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

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.

Every Open Eye by Chvrches is out September 25 via Liberation.

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