Another extremely winning record from Chvrches, with probably 10% less joyously unexpected left turn-ness and unpredictability but maybe a touch more overall consistency than the delightful The Bones of What You Believe from a couple of years back. Plenty of emotional melodrama, with melodies carried urgently along by the synths, beats and Mayberry's beguiling delivery and hooks hitting from all directions. It's good to listen to and feels of the moment, but what does that even mean; to take an example, "Make Them Gold" (one of the weaker cuts) could've come straight off 1989, but then it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to imagine that latter as having been influenced, directly or otherwise, by The Bones of What You Believe in Swift's omnivorous reflection-back-to-itself of the pop zeitgeist - who can really say?
