CHVRCHES announce their highly anticipated fourth studio album, Screen Violence, out 27 August. The band has also shared the new single, ‘How Not To Drown’, which features one of the trio’s ultimate heroes, Robert Smith of The Cure. 

On ‘How Not To Drown’ Robert Smith’s signature voice melds perfectly with Mayberry’s, both supported by the dark, piano driven song that is based on the concept of staying conscious when you drown. 

Screen Violence was originally conceived as a name for the band. A decade later, and during a pandemic when the reality of screen violence has never been more pertinent, struggling to make the people you love feel more than the characters on a TV show, and experiencing a world of trauma as if it were another, CHVRCHES revived the term for their forthcoming album title. Narrating the theme of screen violence in three main forms – on screen, by screens and through screens – the album touches on feelings of loneliness, disillusionment, fear, heartbreak and regret. 

“I think for me it was helpful to go into the process with the idea that I could write something escapist almost,” Mayberry says of the album. “That felt freeing initially, to have concepts and stories to weave your own feelings and experiences through but in the end, all the lyrics were definitely still personal.” While Martin Doherty adds, “To me, the screen aspect was a bit more literal. When we were making the record, it was like half of our lives were lived through screens. What began as a concept was now a lifeline.”