SCOTTISH INDIE CHART-BOTHERERS CHVRCHES, RELOCATED TO THE U.S. TO MAKE ALBUM NUMBER THREE, LOVE IS DEAD, AND CAME UP TRUMPS WITH ONE OF THE YEAR’S MOST RIGHTEOUS RECORDS. THE TRIO TALK TO CLASSIC POP ABOUT SPEED-DATING PRODUCERS, WORKING WITH DAVE STEWART AND HOW TO STAY COOL AROUND YOUR HEROES…

JOHN EARLS

CHVRCHES

Take Me To Chvrch: Indietronica outfit Chvrches, featuring Martin Doherty, Lauren Mayberry and Iain Cook, relocated from Glasgow to New York before working on their new album Love Is Dead

It’s 11.30am on a Friday in New York. Spring has started in earnest – but Chvrches, the three-headed pop phenomenon from Glasgow, are here and it’s tipping it down… “This is classic Scottish weather, there’s no denying that,” announces the baseball-capped keyboardist/ sampler Martin Doherty as Lauren Mayberry, the band’s upbeat singer, surveys the grey skies. Immediately lightening the mood she beams: “I’m feeling very efficient and productive. I’ve already done my recycling, gone shopping and been to the gym.”

”A lot of people are feeling confused and frustrated, so I think they’ll identify with this record” – Lauren Mayberry on new album Love Is Dead

”COMING TO NEW YORK TOOK ME OUTSIDE OF MY COMFORT ZONE”

LAUREN MAYBERRY

The pair are joined by the perma-enthusiastic keyboardist/guitarist Iain Cook and, despite the rain following them from Scotland, the trio are in a cheery mood… and they have ample reason to be. After two albums made at their own studio on a Glasgow industrial estate, Chvrches now all live in New York – and the change of scenery has made for their most adventurous and defiant pop album yet.

You can take Love Is Dead at face value and luxuriate in an album stuffed with anthemic bangers if you want.

But that would be to ignore Mayberry’s progression as one of pop’s smartest lyricists, fitting wise advice and yearning restlessness around a succession of infectious hooks.

Cook’s description of the epic Graves as being: “So triumphant and so defeated at the same time,” is a fine summary of the album as a whole. “That is kinda how I feel at the moment,” nods Mayberry.

With production and writing input from Greg Kurstin (hitmaker for Adele, Foo Fighters and Lily Allen) and pop behemoth Steve Mac, whose credits include Leona Lewis, The Wanted and JLS, Love Is Dead is a record that expands the band’s world, but retains the crackling energy that has made Chvrches a byword for uncompromising intensity.

This is no surprise, considering the trio seemed determined to make their new working life in New York as unglamorous as possible.The pair are joined by the perma-enthusiastic keyboardist/guitarist Iain Cook and, despite the rain following them from Scotland, the trio are in a cheery mood… and they have ample reason to be. After two albums made at their own studio on a Glasgow industrial estate, Chvrches now all live in New York – and the change of scenery has made for their most adventurous and defiant pop album yet.