Lockdown listening: Chvrches' new album Screen Violence and the horrors of the internet

Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty, Iain Cook - aka Chvrches - have released their new album, Screen Violence. Photo / Supplied

Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry has been through a lot in the decade since the band began, and the act's latest record is a culmination of those reflections.

She describes the album's overarching themes, outside of the references to darkness, as perseverance and hope. Mayberry's passion for her work and sense of self is infectious, when speaking with her I get the impression she knows exactly what she gets across, and that strong sense of identity is a vivid thread on Screen Violence.

"When we were making the record, it felt nice to escape to this world we were creating," she explains. The record was finished during the pandemic, and that meant Mayberry was left to her own devices in the evenings and filled the empty silence with a new sound for Chvrches.

"It felt very freeing, as a lyricist to take off the parameters I would normally put in place. I don't think I would normally write stuff that felt so image or narrative-heavy," she says.

Screen Violence was a proposed band name for Chvrches, and thanks to Mayberry's nostalgic streak she knew it was going to be the name of the next album when she discovered the list when the band was thinking of what music they wanted to make next.

The themes on the album fit with Mayberry's experiences just as much as the current state of the world. Talking to the Herald over Zoom, she says one of the things she is most proud of when it comes to the album is its strong female perspective. The band channelled the concept of the final girl, a horror trope that refers to the last woman alive in a slasher movie who confronts the killer. It is also the name of a song on the album.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CHVRCHES (@chvrches)

Mayberry is all too familiar with the themes on Screen Violence –

she has spoken openly about getting death threats and online abuse

in the past. She's conscious of the threats not just affecting her or the band, but her parents and loved ones too. People who didn't decide to be in the spotlight.

The horror movie references peppered throughout the album are no accident: they're representative of her experiences in the band. She says referencing the horror concepts through the album was an "interesting challenge".

"In my opinion, women don't get to write the pages of history or art very often. So if you are going to, why should you not be honest about your experience in that space?

"So many f***ing people have told me over the years – and still tell me, 'You really just need to get over it,'" she adds.

"It's easy for people to say all these things are real, they're not going to hurt you. But psychologically, if you wake up to an inbox of death threats, your brain doesn't make that distinction," Mayberry says.

If she had listened to the people who told her to get over it, and to grow a thicker skin, she wouldn't have written this record.

Screen Violence's songs sound clearly cathartic and anthemic, signalling an intentional mood for the album that mirrors Mayberry's feelings. Violent Delights is one of those tracks – a standout of the album which references the horror franchise Nightmare on Elm Street. Final.

"It's about the things we experienced that feel like horror. And in a way, I feel like when people have talked about what's happened to the band it's like they were watching it on TV, they're watching it on their phone or watching it like a movie. You're an abstract character," she says.

As an artist, how do you untether yourself from the internet, the very thing responsible for delivering your music to your fans? Mayberry doesn't dismiss how the band has benefitted from the web – their music first went viral on SoundCloud. But a decade on, she is conscious of what she can – and cannot – control about the internet.

My questions prompt her to reflect on a talk with a tech company the band participated in in 2014, when she was asked if she was requesting an emotional bodyguard when she was critiquing the internet, and why it was the company's job to protect her. A fan had sent her the video recently, and she could see a stark difference between herself then, and how she would handle that remark now.

"I looked just like, so beaten from everything, like I'm just staring at the floor...just so beaten by everything, and so sad.

"I was asking for help," she realises. "As a [now] 33-year-old woman, I'm sure I would have told him to shove it quite far up his ass. But as a 24-year-old, I was like, 'I don't know.'

Looking back on herself in that clip, in retrospect, she knows she wanted somebody to care and somebody to help her navigate the tough moments.

"As a 33-year-old woman I know that certain people aren't going to care, but I know that I can be in control of how I conduct myself, how I treat other people, and how I can be in control of my craft. At the end of the day, you can never take that away."

And those parts of the job, Mayberry says, is why she's still making music.

"Ultimately, I'm incredibly lucky to get to do this. I know it's a f***ing privilege to make music, and if anything, that's why it felt like such a cathartic record."

• Screen Violence is out now.