Chvrches are streaming their superb second album “Every Open Eye” in full, ahead of its 25th September release. Every Open Eye takes the best parts of its predecessor and improves on them in every conceivable way.
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Keep up to date with all the latest music news, gossip, and give-aways from Electric Banana by following us on Twitter and Google Plus, and liking us on Facebook. Two years spent touring has gone a long way towards helping them find themselves and put to rest the hesitancy that bogged down parts of their debut. These songs may feature their slickest production yet, but they avoid feeling hollow thanks to Doherty and Cook’s keen ear for bridging together disparate elements with laser precision, all while allowing Mayberry’s pointed lyrics to come through. But 2013 debut The Bones of What You Believe felt slight and lacked energy, as if it had been rushed to capitalize on momentum. But these are minor quibbles, with the album climbing towards its conclusion with the aforementioned “Playing Dead” neatly placed between the multi-layered swirl of “Down Side of Me” and the organ-tinged slow-burn of the closing “Afterglow”-lush, beautifully unfolding, though teasingly never quite peaking as you’d imagine it would do”. Every Open Eye offers no apologies, no caveats, no halfway measures. Building on the massive, blog-transcending success of “The Bones of What You Believe“, Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Docherty made a gleaming monolith of pop. It’s a stirring closer, and a hint, perhaps, that the next album will take some more chances.
