Arts & Life

Review: Chvrches’ ‘Every Open Eye’

Chvrches have seen the light. The Glaswegian synth-pop trio’s second album “Every Open Eye” is an ethereal, electronic cornucopia that draws out optimism from a post-love heart.

Frontwoman Lauren Mayberry’s shrill sermons carry band mates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty. The band’s clean sound is pushed to the forefront with resonating lyrics, smart tones and perfectly timed beat drops throughout the album. “Every Open Eye” is Pet Shop Boys meets Grimes meets Banks. It is a sucker-punch anthology of pulses.

The album opens bluntly with the antagonizing track “Never Ending Circles.” We sway with each electronic trill and sung gasps from Mayberry who channels the bubblegum rebellion of ‘80s songstress Cyndi Lauper.

The synth-driven “Leave a Trace,” follows in all its anti-love glory. Mayberry puts a little more hurt into this track with memorable lyrics like “Take care to bury all that you can / take care to leave a trace of a man.”

Redemption and honesty are the connecting threads of “Every Open Eye” and continues on this tact with punchy, beat-driven anthems “Keep You on My Side” and “Make Them Gold.”

“We are made of our longest days / we are falling but not alone,” Mayberry preaches in “Make Them Gold.” “We will take the best parts of ourselves / and make them gold.”

But the album’s whimsical, captivating turn on pinnacle track and single “Clearest Blue” best encapsulates the album’s themes. The song is a mix of remorse and hope, and its explosive drop of dry staccato notes and fuzzy beats echoes Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.” If you weren’t up before, the song’s effusive electro-crescendo will force you to move.

Doherty takes up the mic on “High Enough to Carry You Over” and his throaty Bryan Adams-esque vocals provide a counterbalance to the familiarity Mayberry has fostered with the listener.

The dancey beginnings of “Every Open Eye” fade away as the album takes a sudden dark turn. Returning with a goth-pop vengeance, Mayberry shouts at us on “Empty Threat,” hums with remorse on “Down Side of Me” and emerges with an exclamation point in the vigorous “Playing Dead” and “Bury It.”

Yet another sharp turn concludes the album with Mayberry’s synthy lullaby “Afterglow.” Although somewhat uncharacteristic for the album, the track continues the overall theme of memorializing our past, of tracing our footprints and unapologetically casting them in gold.

“Every Open Eye” bellows with confidence and acquiesces when it needs to and shows that the band has grown more comfortable with their sound. Like other career defining albums such as Depeche Mode’s “Violator,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” “Every Open Eye” will be the work to remember Chvrches by.

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