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Apr 10, 2018 By Christopher Roberts CHVRCHES

Scottish electro-pop trio CHVRCHES are releasing a new album, Love Is Dead, on May 25 via Glassnote. Previously they shared its first three singles, “Get Out” (which was our #1 Song of the Week), “My Enemy” (which features the guest vocals of Matt Berninger of The National and EL VY and was also one of our Songs of the Week), and the ultra shiny “Never Say Die” (which was once again one of our Songs of the Week). Now they have shared a fourth song from the album, “Miracle.” Listen below.

The band had this to say about the song in a statement: “Miracle is the only song from Love Is Dead that we didn’t write and record in the States, instead producing it in London with Steve Mac. Steve is such an intuitive writer with such a killer ear for melody and working with him felt very easy and natural. He makes space for everyone in the room and really pushes people to try things and go outside of their comfort zone, in a good way.”

Also, as the BBC reports (via Pitchfork), CHVRCHES are sponsoring Girls Rock Glasgow this summer, which is a program in the Scottish city for girls aged 8-16 where they learn instruments, can form a band, make merchandise and zines, and more. Frontwoman Lauren Mayberry noticed that Girls Rock Glasgow was having trouble with funding this year and decided to step in.

“I’ve been to one of the day sessions they had before,” Mayberry told the BBC. “The things they offer and the smiles on the kids’ faces would melt your heart so I thought I would message them and see how much they’d applied for. We were like ‘well, this costs less one of Iain’s [Cook, the keyboard player and guitarist in the band] synthesizers’ so it just seemed that it would be a really valuable thing to do.”

Thrilled to announce @CHVRCHES sponsorship of this year’s rock school, couldn’t have asked for better patrons - didn’t have to - their kind offer of help came at just the right time, enabling us to continue with plans and means more sponsored places than ever. Thankyou so much! x

— Girls Rock Glasgow (@girlsrockglasgo) April 7, 2018

CHVRCHES also previously did an acoustic set of three songs at the New York studio Power Station in partnership with Honda where they covered Beyoncé‘s “XO” and also did acoustic versions of “Get Out” and “The Mother We Share” (from their debut album). They also covered The 1975’s “Somebody Else” for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge.

Greg Kurstin (Adele, Tegan and Sara) co-produced nine of the album’s 13 songs and Steve Mac produced one song, “Miracle.” CHVRCHES are Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty.

A previous press release said, “Love Is Dead is at times euphoric and others bittersweet, it is an album about growing up.” Mayberry added that the album is “coming to terms with the fact that there are great things in the world and there are awful things in the world and that you can’t get one without the other.”

Cook also had this to say: “We’re fucked, the world is fucked. But there’s an ellipses at the end. It’s Love Is Dead. Like, how did we get to this point? And how do we move on from this point? It’s Love Is Dead, we’re fucked, what’s next?”

In February 2017 we reported that the band had started work on their third album and were working with Dave Stewart of iconic 1980s duo Eurythmics (although his name wasn’t mentioned in the album announcement). Then there was word they were working with Kurstin and that it might be their most pop album yet.

CHVRCHES released their well-received second album, Every Open Eye, in 2015 via Glassnote (it was #9 on Under the Radar‘s Top 100 Albums of 2015 list). In 2017 they guest starred in the comic book series The Archies and covered Tegan and Sara’s “Call It Off” for their The Con X: The Covers album.

CHVRCHES were on the cover of one of our print issues in 2015 and you can read the in-depth 8-page 5,600-word cover story feature on the band here. You can also read our bonus digital magazine Q&A with them here.

CHVRCHES Tour Dates:

May 31st - Primavera, Barcelona, Spain
June 3rd - The Governors Ball, New York, NY
June 8th - Best Kept Secret, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands
June 10th - Parklife, Higher Blackley, UK
June 17th - Bb&T Pavilion, Camden, NJ
June 22nd - Southside Festival, Nehausen Ob Eck, Germany
June 22nd - Hurricane Festival, Scheessel, Germany
June 29th - Aerodrome, Panensky Tynec, Czech Republic
June 30th - Openair St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland
July 8th - TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow, UK
July 11th - Ahoi The Full Hit of Summer, Linz, Austria
July 13th - NOS Alive, Alges, Portugal
July 15th - Citadel Festival, London, UK
July 27th - Fuji Rock, Yuzawa, Japan
August 3rd - Hinterland Music Festival, St Charles, IA

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