Chvrches - Screen Violence

Pitchfork 72

Read Katherine St. Asaph’s review of the album.

The Guardian 0

(EMI)
The Glaswegian trio use horror film tropes to explore fame, double standards and battles closer to home on their intense fourth album

In 1992, the US film professor Carol J Clover published Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton University Press). In it, she introduced the concept of the “final girl”, a female protagonist who survives the bloodbath to take on the slasher in the closing scenes. If the final girl is heroic, she is also a problematic figure, kept alive by the film-maker because of her sobriety or chastity while other women who have more fun get the axe. The sequel makes the final girl’s victory pyrrhic anyway.

Midway through Screen Violence, Chvrches’ intense fourth album, a song called Final Girl puts the well-worn horror trope to a more personal use. Lauren Mayberry – mouthpiece of the Glaswegian synth-pop trio – doesn’t want to “end up in a bodybag”. In 2019, Chvrches co-authored a huge tune, Here With Me, with Marshmello. The EDM DJ then went on to work with Chris Brown, the rapper convicted of violently assaulting Rihanna.

Inner horrors – self-doubt, regret, disillusionment – are all present and correct here too