Chvrches are back with a new single, ‘Roses’, and have announced two small UK shows. Here are the details.
‘Roses’ is the band’s first new release in five years, bringing a darker, more industrial sound.
The politically charged track moves away from the big disco pop sound of their 2021 album ‘Screen Violence’. Lauren Mayberry sings, “Raise a glass to delusions of the good days of blood and wine; of pearls for swine”, before the song opens into a choral chorus. It closes with the announcement: “If I may command your undivided attention, now we can start.”
In the video, Mayberry appears with a new goth look, performing beside a crashed car and a suit of shining armour.
Chvrches have also revealed plans for two intimate secret shows: one in their hometown of Glasgow on October 26 and another in London on October 29. Fans can enter a ballot for the chance to buy tickets. All proceeds will go to charity.
“This is the longest break we had ever taken between albums and when we got together to write new music, we wanted to really push ourselves and not be retreading ground we’d walked before,” Mayberry said.
“I really think we achieved that. It feels like the most coherent vision we’ve had as a band. We’re excited to be back..”
The release follows the band’s live debut of another new song, ‘Conman’, earlier this year. They played it during Robert Smith’s Teenage Cancer Trust concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.
‘Conman’ also begins with a pulsing industrial bass line. On the track, Mayberry sings: “A man made for the microphone fills my pockets full of stones / All of his wives, all of his nine lives dance on the edge of a knife.”
Chvrches confirmed last summer that they were making a new album. Earlier this year, Martin Doherty and Jonny Scott spoke to NME about what listeners could expect.
“It’s going to surprise people, and I hope it’s going to delight them and rip some faces off,” Doherty said. He also estimated that the album was 90 per cent finished. “It’s quite hard, but not to the point where you won’t recognise the band. It’s still the same people and DNA.”
Since the band’s previous album, Mayberry has released her debut solo record, ‘Vicious Creatures’, which arrived in December 2024. NME gave it three stars, writing: “Mayberry is indeed on her own path of solo discovery, and that leaves plenty of room to be excited about what lies on the road ahead as she digs even deeper into her solo artistry.”
Mayberry has also worked with IDLES’ Joe Talbot, Death Cab For Cutie and The National’s Aaron Dessner. With Dessner, she recorded a cover of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘Who’d Kill You Now?’ for ‘Tiny Changes’, a tribute to the band’s late frontman Scott Hutchinson.
Doherty and Scott introduced their dance music project, The Leaving, earlier this year. They started it while both were living in Los Angeles and dealing with difficult periods in their lives.
Watch Chvrches and Robert Smith perform ‘How Not To Drown’ at the BandLab NME Awards 2022
Iain Cook shared a remix of The Cranberries’ ‘Linger’ in 2024. In 2022, he also joined Scott Paterson, formerly of Sons & Daughters, to start the project Protection.
