CHVRCHES Reveal New Rock-Tinged Song “Roses”: Stream

CHVRCHES have kicked off a new era with “Roses,” their first new song in three years. “Roses” finds the trio of Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty reprising the darker, knottier approach of their acclaimed 2021 album Screen Violence and leaning heavier into a rock sound than ever before. Acoustic drums crash and guitars whine; the band’s usual synthesizer magic is still there, but it’s more of an atmospheric touch this time around. Get CHVRCHES Vinyl Here Lyrically, Mayberry takes aim at how notions of Classical Britain — including feudalism, colonial violence, monarchy, and plagues — have infected contemporary life in the UK. She interpolates the English folk song “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” in the chorus, which is often associated with England’s Great Plague in the 1600s, the Bubonic Plague before it, and the Second World War. “All these things for God and for King/ We all keep going round,” Mayberry sings, later rapping in the bridge, “A woman is a woman even if you want her dead/ Siphoning the bodies as a way to get ahead.” “This is the longest break we had ever taken between albums and when we got together to write new music, we wanted to really push ourselves and not b...