New Music: Chvrches - My Enemy

At the end of every month (e.g. today) I update my Spotify Breaking More Waves playlist, deleting all the tracks I wrote about on the blog in the previous month and adding all the songs I’ve written about this month. So now you don’t even have to bother reading the blog – you can just follow the playlist and once a month take a dive into everything I’ve covered. Simple.

You can find the Breaking More Waves monthly playlist by clicking on this link here.

February started with the brand new and rather excellent Chvrches single Get Out and it ends in a similar way, with another new song called My Enemy, which means I can conveniently bookend the playlist with Chvrches songs. And let’s face it if you are going to have two songs by one artist on any new music playlist, it might as well be by Chvrches.

So, what do you all need to know about My Enemy? Just these 5 simple things:

1. On first listen I thought it was a 7/10 song. After another six or seven plays I’ve revised my opinion to an 8 or 8.5. It might even become a 9. If you listen just once and think it’s a 9, we’ve both gone on the same journey. It’s just yours was via the equivalent of a high speed jet plane and mine was via a slow cycle in the country. Different journeys, same result, and when the result is a good one that’s all that matters.

2. It features Matt Berninger of The National. Some hardcore pop fans might possibly be saying ‘who?’ but then I’ve never particularly thought of Chvrches as a hardcore pop fans band – they’re more of a pop band for people that don’t normally like pop music, if that makes any sense? And the sort of person that likes pop music for people who don’t normally like pop music will undoubtedly know who Matt Berninger is. 

3. Despite that bloke from The National being involved, Lauren from Chvrches sings the best bits (the hook). But then it’s her band so why shouldn’t she? Otherwise he'll just get all the credit and he has his own bloody band to do that with.

4. It’s a ballad of sorts. But don’t worry. It’s not cheesy.

5. Any pop ballad that has words like so cold, so callous, so vile, so vicious and the emptiness will go on and on probably isn’t going to be a total barrel of laughs. But then the new Chvrches album is called Love Is Dead, so it’s to be expected really.

Chvrches - My Enemy

New Music: Chvrches - Get Out

Here’s a picture of one of Breaking More Waves favourite bands. You know who they are, they’re Chvrches. Now at this stage in proceedings I should write a lengthy post (or maybe I’d I call it an essay if  wanted to give it a sense of gravitas and importance) on their brand new song, their first single in two years. 

It’s called Get Out. 

But then being the type of person that visits music blogs as you clearly are probably means that by now you’ve already read plenty of pieces about Get Out on other sites. A lot of them will have been lifted straight from the press release. You will also possibly have heard Lauren from the band talking on the radio about Chvrches 2018 (or #CHV3 as the band are using on Twitter) and how when they play gigs they’ll be introducing live drums to the set and how they decided to not self-produce this album but worked with Greg Kurstin of Adele, Foo Fighters and Sia fame.

So instead let’s turn our attention to that photo. It’s just a regular promo photo right? Of course. But look again. Don’t you think Iain from the band is actually looking younger than he was 3 or 4 years ago? Is he actually the Benjamin Button of pop? And what about the people in the background? There are some girls who seem to be staring straight at the camera or band. Are they Chvrches super-fans and if so are they so star struck that their faces have melted off? Because it looks like that. And who is that guy on the far left? The one with his hand in his pocket. He looks a bit sinister. And why is Martin also looking to the left (his right)? What has he spotted? Is he becoming slowly aware of creepy guy behind him who is about to draw a knife and stab him in the back because he’s a ‘real music’ fan and can’t stand bands who destroy it with all those synths and computers? How will the scene unfold? Maybe we'll see that in the promo pic for the next release?

You probably didn’t get commentary like that on Pitchfork did you? 

That’s why Breaking More Waves is an irrelevant two-bit blog written by one person on his laptop with an old school Blogspot template and Pitchfork is Pitchfork. 

Anyway, Get Out. You probably already know this but it’s a VERY GOOD POP SONG. Dark sexy synths in the verse and a hooky chorus. It’s 100% recognisably Chvrches but doesn’t sound jaded or heard-it-all-before.

If you have missed it so far, here it is.

It's great to have them back.

Chvrches - Get Out

New Music: Chvrches - Clearest Blue (Video)

One of the internal conflicts of writing a music blog like this is the devotion to all things fresh and musically young blooded versus the desire to feature stuff that really doesn’t need support from tiny websites anymore. Take for example the latest Chvrches video. When I first wrote about the Scottish trio they had just a few hundred plays on their Soundcloud and had yet to change the ‘u’ to a ‘v’. Blog support was important to them then, in fact they made a point in a number of interviews of saying that if it wasn’t for blogs they probably wouldn’t have got the opportunities that they now have.

Yet now, with a new video for THE BANGER in the live set (and best song on the album) clocking up thousands of plays in the first 24 hours, it feels relatively pointless posting it here unless there’s some other culturally significant comment / deeply thought out argument / new context / hilarious comedy joke to be made about it.

But in this case I don’t have one.

Except to say that basically the first 2 and a half minutes of this song are really just one big long build to the eargasm moment aren’t they? And I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere has already said that far more eloquently than I have.

So just enjoy the ride. What a song.

Chvrches - Clearest Blue (Video)

Albums of 2015 #8 Chvrches - Every Open Eye

Two years ago Chvrches topped our albums of the year list with their debut record, The Bones of What You Believe. In 2015 their second album might not feature quite so highly in our list, but it was nonetheless a sterling effort, confirming their reputation as the UK’s finest synth pop band. If Every Open Eye played safe, then it at least it consolidated and expanded their fan base, something which (arguably) comparable electronic acts such as Hurts and Little Boots failed to do (although here at Breaking More Waves we very much liked the second Little Boots album).

Yet whilst the template was more of the same, this record held its own by featuring a crop of songs that had punch and remained easily accessible, with just enough experimentation and oddness to ensure that their version of pop music didn’t become the homogenic paint by numbers blandness that litters up the majority of the charts. The songs on Every Open Eye still have something a little deeper to them, a little soul and bite, something that sadly another blog favourite, Ellie Goulding’s latest record lacked.

If the criticism of this album is that it doesn’t go far enough away from the first record, let’s remember this is only LP number two. Sure, if the band don’t slowly evolve and develop on future work there’s a likelihood we’ll all get bored, but frankly right here right now, when you’ve got songs as deliciously foot stomping and air punching as Clearest Blue or the delicious soft focus high energy disco pop of Empty Threat and banger after banger after banger, (when comedown track Afterglow arrives it feels really needed – a moment for rest and reflection ) you’d be churlish to complain.

“We will take the best parts of ourselves and make them gold,” Lauren Mayberry sings on fourth song Make Them Gold, and that is exactly what they have achieved on Every Open Eye. 

Chvrches - Empty Threat (Video)

Chvrches - Leave A Trace (Video)

A few days ago we posted a few words about the ups and downs of being a fan of a particular artist. In investing so much love and expectation in a band or singer (and quite possibly money – although it seems these days that for many fans financial investment in their favourite acts is less important than it ever was), at some point there will almost inevitably come disappointment. But because art (and therefore pop music) is often surprising, contradictory, remarkable and accidentally wonderful, it’s often worth sticking with your favourites, because they’ll probably startle and amaze you soon enough again.

As we stated before, one act like that here at Breaking More Waves towers is Chvrches. We’ve struggled with their new song Never Ending Circles, not because it isn’t ‘good’ but because its similarity to previous releases hasn’t really grabbed us yet. (*We reserve the right to change our mind on this in 6 months time when we proclaim it our single of the year or something similar). 

Yet here we are again, once again writing about Chvrches and the new video for their other recent song Leave A Trace - a slick tune that tickles our ears with plenty of pleasure and now there’s a slick splashtastic video to accompany it.

However, it seems that this video has got some misogynists worked up (read this thread linked here if you haven’t seen it; really do some people have nothing better to do with their time than post this sort of crap on line?). “PSA: apparently wet hair makes you a "slut". Nice work, 4chan / humanity,” the band tweeted later. Thankfully we’ll console ourselves that there are millions of people in the world and that thread only has a small number of people posting on it. We hope / believe that the vast majority of humanity is actually OK. Now, back to the music, because Leave A Trace is bloody marvellous. As Lauren sings: “Take care to bury all that you can, take care to leave a trace of a man,” we can feel a big old air punch coming on.

Chvrches - Leave A Trace (Video)

Chvrches - Get Away

Like all relationships that start with a rush of heady excitement we thought that our love of Chvrches would eventually wane a little into something more sedate and comfortable.

The trouble is that every time we think that’s about to happen the f*ckers bang something new into our ears and make us feel that music is the greatest thing ever again. 

The song is Get Away and it’s taken from a project titled Radio 1 Rescores: Drive - Curated by Zane Lowe that will be broadcast on BBC 3 on October 30th. The venture aims to provide a new soundtrack to the film and features the likes of Banks, Bastille, Jon Hopkins, The 1975 and Laura Mvula. Chvrches contribution is immense; the whole thing’s full of hooks, waves of euphoric synths and just wait for the build about two thirds of the way through. It redefines the word orgasm. Our love continues. It's good to be alive.

Chvrches - Get Away

Soak - Blud (Chvrches Remix)

We’ve been holding back on this remix one for one simple reason - today Chvrches play the first of two shows at London’s Forum, with 17 year old Derry songwriter SOAK, aka Bridie Monds-Watson in support. It will probably come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that Breaking More Waves will be in attendance, Chvrches being our favourite new band of the last 22 months.

So it seems appropriate to post this today, signing off the first chapter in the book of Chvrches. With the band currently A-listed on Radio 1, running their own record label (of which SOAK is the first release) and selling out two nights at the Forum (and let’s not forget the fantastic album) the band have achieved more than we could possibly imagine when we first heard Lies in May 2012 (although we knew it was a great song even then.) The band have spoken in the past about how the internet was an incredibly potent tool in enabling their success, with the likes of social media and fan-run DIY blogs like this being essential in spreading the word about their music. If our posts and sometimes over the top gushings about the band have helped in any small way to help them find an audience it’s made it all worthwhile.

If you’re going to see Chvrches tonight, come and celebrate their success with us. We’ll see you down the front.

Soak - Blud - (Chvrches Remix)

Chvrches - Bela Lugosi's Dead

When we named Chvrches The Bones Of What You Believe as our favourite album of 2013 we stated that we could imagine them writing a particularly good score for a horror film soundtrack due to the sinister menace that some of their synth sounds. Little did we know then that whilst they haven’t gone the whole hog with their own soundtrack, they were about to contribute a cover to a film which in title at least contains something potentially scary; namely Vampires. However judging by the trailers (here , here, and here) it appears that Vampire Academy is basically just a Hogwarts meets Twilight high school movie that certainly won’t be winning any Oscars. 

Chvrches contribution to Vampire Academy is a cover of the noir classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus which seems to have brought out the goth contingent from their dark slumbers to comment on Soundcloud. “This is god-awful have you ever listened to the original?” asks one listener. Is it really that bad? Not to our ears, not at all. This is Chvrches taking the song and putting their style to it, although we detect a hint of reference to John Carpenter’s Halloween soundtrack in the drive and pulse of the tune. Get stuck into this.

Chvrches - Bela Lugosi's Dead

12 From '13 - Some Of The Best Songs Featured On Breaking More Waves This Year

We’re geting ready to say goodbye to 2013 as its sun begins to set. Before we do so, here are some 2013 blog related facts then some music:

1. This year we’ve uploaded close to 400 blog posts. 

2. 400 posts is quite a lot of words (the equivalent of a novel) and a lot of music (the equivalent of about 40 albums worth). 

3. If you had read and listened to everything we've posted in 2013, at a guess, it would have taken you about 45 hours of your life - the equivalent of a working week. 

4. Its difficult to quantify, but we reckon we've spent the equivalent of between 7 and 8 working weeks on Breaking More Waves this year (if you include listening to music that we may / may not include on the blog and other blog related activities such as emailing artists / labels and their representatives, a bit of social media stuff, but excluding gigs and festivals). Yet despite being quite time heavy, having to balance it against the day job, family etc, at no stage has it ever felt like work in terms of the pressures and responsibilities that our real day job places upon us. We've enjoyed everything that comes from writing Breaking More Waves, probably more so this year than any year before. 

5. We've seen a fair few well known blogs give up in 2013 due to the usual reasons of lack of motivation (see this post on Chromewaves for one example) or some that were on hiatus then vanished with no real public explanation (what did happen to The Recommender?). Then there were others that moved on to do other exciting things; our favourite girl on the block / in a field / up a mountain Flying With Anna closed down to open a new chapter (and blog) in her life as she set off on her travels. And so after 5 and a half years of Breaking More Waves is also stopping. Till tomorrow that is. We need a break. But 24 hours should be enough. See you at 8.30am on New Years Day?

And that's it. We’re closing our year by featuring 12 of our favourite (and therefore 'best') songs we've featured from 2013, each one in video form. For once, we 're providing no commentary on the individual tracks, we think we've said all we want to say for one year.

This isn’t a definitive list as we’ve chosen 1 song from each month’s worth of posts, meaning that on really good months a number of great songs have had to be sacrificed and some songs that we adore haven’t made the cut as they never had a video.

If you missed any of these gems we highly recommend you press play. The artists who have created these beauties deserve at least that.

We wish you a very happy New Year. We’ll be back tomorrow in 2014.

Twelve from thirteen = the ones.

Thank you for reading. 

January 

Indiana - Bound



February

Public Service Broadcasting - Signal 30



March

Lorde - Royals



April

Lana Del Rey - Young And Beautiful



May

John Newman - Love Me Again



June

Chvrches - Gun



July

London Grammar - Strong



August

Flyte - Over and Out



September

FKA Twigs - Papi Pacify



October

Mononoke - Alice



November

Wolf Alice - Blush



December

Laura Doggett - Sometimes

Chvrches - Tether (Junior Sanchez Remix)

Earlier today we revealed The Bones Of What You Believe by Chvrches as Breaking More Waves album of 2013. It’s the first time in the blogs short history that an electronic band has found their name at the top of the pile joining the likes of Bon Iver, Blue Roses, The National, The Unthanks and Lana Del Rey. It seems long overdue with much of our favourite tunes and output of the blog being electronic pop based. However, there’s a huge difference between a few brilliantly individual singles and a whole body of work that you can listen to repeatedly. 

Sometimes this is where pop falls over. Singles are generally pop’s game. Yet, as we’ve suggested a number of times in this year’s run down of our favourite long-players, in 2014 pop upped that game; Lorde, Pet Shop Boys, Little Boots and of course Chvrches have all made great pop albums where the sum of the parts is more than the individual songs.

If you missed any of our favourite 15 albums of 2013, you can find them all here.

Tomorrow we return to new music blogging, introducing before Christmas at least two acts that have had little (if any) coverage on blogs to date. Until then we’ll leave you with a new remix of one our favourite tracks from our favourite LP. Junior Sanchez takes hold of Tether and pumps it up for a hands in the air, catching lasers dancefloor moment. This is glorious.

Chvrches - Tether (Junior Sanchez Remix)

Albums of the Year 2013 #1 - Chvrches - The Bones Of What You Believe

Last year we opened our Ones to Watch 2013 list with Scottish three piece Chvrches. One year on we’re closing our Albums of 2013 run down with the same band. The Bones Of What You Believe is our favourite record of the year. We believed and they delivered more than just the bones of a great record. 

It's an album that has commercial appeal (reaching number 5 in the UK charts and number 12 on the US Billboard chart) and yet has layers and depth that bring you back for further listening in the same way a rock record often does. Maybe the bands past history in groups such as Iain Cook's post-rock Unwinding Hours or the indie beginnings of Lauren Mayberry's Blue Sky Archives subconsciously had influence on the way the songs were structured 

Look back at the albums we listed on previous posts between #15 and #2 and you’ll notice that one theme is that it’s been a good year for pop music. Not the painting by numbers mundane pop that the likes of The Saturdays or Jessie J seem to be eternally capable of pushing out, but an edgier, (dare we say it) intelligent, darker form of pop. Chvrches are absolutely an example of this. But what puts Chvrches at the top of the list is one simple thing; great songs. The Bones Of What You Believe is packed with them. From the uplifting Gun with its blood black menacing chorus : “Hide, hide, I have burned your bridges, I will be a gun, and it's you I'll come for,” to the cascading beauty of Tether, a song that transcends the boundaries of pop and becomes a stadium synth ballad of epic proportions, through to the murderous Moroder meets Vangelis pulse of Science / Visions.

Main vocalist Lauren Mayberry’s voice may sound sugary sweet but the lyrics on this record are often barbed and bitter, the beats pummelling and the synths crystal evil. We could imagine Chvrches writing a particularly good score for a horror film soundtrack. However The Bones Of What You Believe is no horror show musically, but instead a flawless collection of pop of the highest order.

We’re incredibly conscious that sometimes when a new artist puts their first song on line there’s a tendency for the likes of music blogs like Breaking More Waves to get a little over excited and proclaim the act the next big thing and then the artist is unable to live up to expectations. Chvrches not only delivered on expectations but exceeded, in the same way that Lana Del Rey did last year.

Without question our album of the year. The Bones Of What You Believe contains everything we want from a record. A meticulously crafted musically euphoric pop record that as far as we're concerned is perfect.

Missed any of our Albums of the Year 2013 posts? Find them all here.

Chvrches - The Mother We Share (Video)

Chvrches - Lies (Video)

Back in July 2012 we posted a concert footage video of new upwardly rising Scottish band Churches (before they got the bad spelling makeover to Chvrches) having first featured the Soundcloud stream to their song Lies back in May of that year. At the time we raved ecstatically about them based on one factor and one factor only; what we saw as the brilliance of the song. We also voiced some disagreement about how certain cynics were already moaning on the internet that Chvrches were getting blog love because of previous connections they had in the music industry. 

The two points we made then we still believe are very true now and we’re pretty sure that they will be included in the latest Christmas edition of the Rules of Pop (Chapter 18 – Getting Your Songs Heard), so we thought they were worth reiterating:

1. The music industry is called an industry because you have to work hard at things and that includes developing relationships with those who can support getting your music heard. Of course there’s some luck in it, but artists can improve their own chances through graft. Sitting back and complaining that nobody is listening to you is probably either because you haven’t worked hard enough at getting people to listen to them or 2 below.

2. It doesn’t matter how many people you know, how good your contacts are, if the music isn’t up to scratch you’re going nowhere. Nobody that commands respect in the music industry will put their backing to a fart of a tune.

With that little rant out of the way we come back to Chvrches. A year and a half later, they've toured internationally and have released an album and there’s not one of those farts we mentioned on it. It is quite categorically one of the best pop albums of 2013. 

And now there’s a new video, which takes a sci-fi virtual reality romance theme to visually accompany the song that started it all off.

From blog hype / love to the Bones Of What You Believe Chvrches haven’t let us down.

Footnote : So often have we mentioned Chvrches this year to people that our predictive text on our phone now spells Churches Chvrches.

Chvrches - Lies (Video)

Chvrches - Gun (Auntie Flo Remix)

We really like the idea of an elderly bespectacled Auntie doing remixes, sitting there in her vintage Macintosh chair with her laptop, banging out some beats, breaks and drops during a break from knitting her nephew a new scarf for the forthcoming winter and making a nice sponge cake for the family.

Unfortunately Auntie Flo is a traitor. For Flo is a man! Surely Trading Standards should be involved here? However, he does wear glasses and for all we know might enjoy a spot of knitting and cake baking after he’s finished his knob twiddling productions. Let's not make assumptions.

Today Chvrches announced a raft of new dates (that’s live shows,  not some sort of endorsement of a new variety of fruit from a palm tree in a bizarre piece of Glasgow based synth-pop food related product endorsement), the details of which can be be found here. In celebration of this Auntie Flo has got to work, not with the knitting needles but with his knobs and buttons. The results are smooth as.

*Footnote - notice the way we managed to succesfully negotiate a whole blog post that included Auntie Flo and never mention Bod? (Younger readers or those lacking in kids TV culture knowledge, if you don't know about Aunt Flo and Bod, that's what Google was invented for; wasting time looking up 1970's kids TV characters just in case you might have to answer a question about one in a pub quiz one day.)

Chvrches - Gun (Auntie Flo remix)

Chvrches - Gun (Video)

See above.

It’s the date that The Bones Of What You Believe Is released. Put it in your diary now.

Take the day off.

Crack open the champage.

Dance around in your underwear with it on the stereo.

That's all.

Here’s the new video for Gun.

Chvrches - Gun (Video)

Chvrches - Gun

You know that strange butterflies in the stomach feeling you get at the start of a relationship? How all you long for is your next encounter with this new exciting person in your life? Your mind is consumed by when you’ll see each other next and the fact is that absolutely nothing else in the world matters?

It’s like that with Breaking More Waves and the music of Chvrches. Is this like teenage infatuation or is it real true love?

Time to take a deep breath….

Consider, pause and think about things rationally. Let’s look for some little niggles, or maybe something that in our exuberant joy we’ve missed. 42% of marriages in the UK end in divorce and we’re pretty sure there’s a whole bunch of records and CD’s that once we felt something for that don’t just quite go for the long term.

Breathe again…..

No. F*ck it. This is L-O-V-E. This is perfect pop. This is life affirming. This is wonderful. Why doubt?

Chvrches - Gun

Curxes - Further Still

This week is huge for fans of electronic pop music. Depeche Mode released their new album Delta Machine, which whilst not achieving the greatness of the likes of Black Celebration or Violator is a vast improvement over previous effort Sound of the Universe. La Roux returns to the fray with a small number of low-key trial-run shows for album number 2 (we’ll be at her Brighton gig – keep an eye out on twitter for our thoughts about that) and one of our Ones to Watch 2013 Chvrches release their brain tingling loin moistening Recover EP. Finally cult-blitz-popsters Curxes (another of our Ones To Watch 2013, who in their early days were compared to Depeche Mode with a female vocalist) release a new free to download single. Is this all some carefully constructed plan by the synth gang to wrestle the crown away from the ‘guitar music is back’ brigade or merely coincidence? Frankly we don’t care. That old cliché that we like any music as long as it’s good holds true and this new material by Curxes is indeed rather tremendous.

Curxes have been described as dramatic, intense and as the sound of two robots fucking (oh hold on, we said that one) after bombarding our senses with the 2012 sister singles Haunted Gold and Spectre. So it’s pretty easy to assume we’ve all got Curxes sussed; that they’re that loud post-industrial-electro-pop group with a whacked up bad-ass bass who treat everything like a hammer to a nail and then some.

Yet those assumptions and conclusions are just the windows that we see from and Curxes aren’t looking at the same view. In fact they’re not even in the same building. There have been subtle hints of this; from the duo’s version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas that premiered on Breaking More Waves at the start of December (racking up 15,000 plays on Soundcloud in just over 4 weeks) to some new songs that they’ve been gradually sneaking into their live set, one of which is Further Still.

It’s a track that has more in similarity with Bat For Lashes and the quieter moments of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s than it does their usual reference points. Written at a time when, for a while, lead singer Roberta Fidora lost part of herself after the break-up of a relationship, it shows that even the coldest of robots have a heart. It’s soft, tender and beautifully sung; the first time that in recorded form Fidora has really shown what a well formed pair of lungs she has. Apparently this is a woman who recently scored 99% in a high level signing exam and was narked that she didn’t get 100. On that basis one day we fully expect a Curxes opera. But for now we’ll stick with their breed of anti-pop; because Further Still isn’t some quick throwaway thrill, it’s not a quick tongue down the throat, knickers off, thank you very much, see you later. It’s subtler and deeper than that. It succeeds because of its restraint; even when the song sounds like it might attempt to explode it holds back.

Don’t expect everything that Curxes do in the future to be the sound of soft footsteps tripping lightly across dusted undertakers floors though, there’s still a fiery heart there as well. It’s part of their yin and yang make-up that made us love them in the first place; that mix of anger and emotional beauty.  Want an example of the other side? Check out their official ‘1996 remix’ of Chvrches Recover which can be found on the Scottish band’s EP. It’s a pure piece of pummelling laser rave synth aggression of the highest order. It will f*ck with your ears. For the future we hear gossip about the sound of a saxophone squealing like a pig being bum-fucked and a band going batshit mental in a Nordic battlefield, which is probably something you don’t get to hear every day. Curxes are most certainly not one of those bands who are compromising what they do for commercial success.

Further Still is free to download now and when they reach the limit on Soundcloud, you can grab it from the bands website. The Chvrches Recover EP is available from the usual digital stores to purchase now. Not only is it a good week for electronic music, but a good day for bad spelling.

Curxes - Further Still

Chvrches - Recover (Curxes 1996 Remix)

St Lucia - Before The Dive (Chvrches Remix)

Having finally seen Chvrches live last week we can confirm that their album is likely to contain 100% killer and no filler, so good are their unreleased songs. We’ll have a while to wait for that (hopefully) glorious moment though, as the long player won’t see the light of day until September. So whilst testing our patience, to tide us over, here’s a new remix of St Lucia’s Before The Dive. Vocal differences aside the Glaswegian threesome stamp their identity all over the song, taking away the smooth flows of the original (which you can hear here) and instead giving it a jerky, sexy, sampler stabbing punch.

In fact after about two and a half minutes of the song we’ve pretty much forgotten that this is St Lucia at all and that instead Chvrches have just sneaked one of their own songs out under a different name and taken us to plugged in heaven all over again. This makes us happy as Entonox.

St Lucia - Before The Dive (Chvrches Remix)

5 Reasons Why We Love Chvrches (OK It's Actually 9 Reasons Disguised As 5)

Last Wednesday Zane Lowe of  BBC Radio 1 premiered Recover, the new single from Chvrches. Moments later it was released to the internet for streaming. What happened next was a phenomenal speed-rush of writing as bloggers and website authors tripped over themselves to upload the song as fast as their copy and pasting fingers would allow them. The result? 24 hours later the song was number 1 on the Hype Machine chart and had clocked up over 70,000 plays on Soundcloud.

Now before you think that we’re about to launch into some sort of angry tirade about hype, buzz and the bandwagon jumping of the blogosphere, think again. Because it’s when blogs and websites act a collective force like this then their real power unleashes, exposing a song like Recover rapidly to thousands of music fans. In all the time we’ve been writing Breaking Waves (and before that its paper based fanzine little sister Breaking The Waves - the only fanzine to carry a 24 page review of a festival) we’ve never met an artist who hasn’t been grateful for the initial exposure that the professional and d-i-y media bring.

We haven’t rushed to post about Recover. There’s a variety of reasons for this; we’ve been fully occupied with ‘real life’ away from the internet, we didn’t see the point in quickly lobbing two quick sentences out just to say the same as everyone else, we didn’t want to interrupt our series on bands from the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition which was pre-written the weekend before and uploading one post a day during the week and finally because we have been in the lucky position of being able to hear Recover for about a week before its official release to the world wide web and so the need to gush excitedly had been placated a little by time.

However, let’s be clear. WE ARE VERY EXCITED ABOUT CHVRCHES. Probably more excited than we’ve been about a band for some time. It’s why we put them at number 1 in our Ones To Watch for 2013 list.

Maybe it’s because we’re getting close to Valentine’s Day, but right here right now, we’re ready to declare our absolute love for Chvrches. They are our 100% our favourite band in the world right now.

Here are 5 reasons why.

1. Music should never just be a tick box exercise, but if it was, rather like one of those dating websites, Chvrches would be our perfect match. Synths. Cute female vocals. Scottish (we have a big thing for Scotland generally). Pop. 80’s referencing but also very of the moment. Job done.

2. Phrases like ‘intelligent pop’ and ‘credible pop’ never sit comfortably with us, because we believe that the greatest pop isn’t about intelligence or credibility but just about great songs. But Chvrches are very much making credible and intelligent pop music. It’s accessible and hooky, yet it doesn’t fall into the trap of being the generic indistinguishable heap of piss-poor averageness that passes for much of today’s modern day chart pop music.

3. Chvrches make great songs. (This is probably the most obvious, but it’s also the most important)

4. Beyond great songs there needs to be something else to make you fall truly in love with a band. Yes of course the music is the most important thing, but people didn’t fall in love with The Smiths, The Clash, The Manic Street Preachers, The Cure or hell even someone like Take That just because of the music. There are other reasons why you fall in love with a band. Here are some of the other reasons why we're gushing like a teenage fanboy about why we love Chvrches a lot. One: Even although we’ve never met them we imagine (and pop music is about imagination as much as anything else) that they’d be the kind of band that we could happily introduce to the parents but could also go for a massive night out in Nice ‘n’ Sleazy’s in Glasgow and have an absolutely mental time with. Two: Chvrches seem like a band. Not two producers with some pretty girl stuck in the front. This is important. It’s hard to love two anonymous producers. It’s easy to love a band. Three: Lead singer Lauren has written a master's dissertation on images of femininity in women's magazines. We’re hoping that as time goes on she’ll be able to subtly use her obvious intelligence to make a difference in pop music. Four: Chvrches seem to be dealing with the hype very well indeed. Scotland has a habit of keeping people grounded in reality and whilst the band are obviously excited about what’s happening with their music, they don’t seem to be getting carried away with things at all.

5. Recover is the perfect track to put out right now. The general first day consensus seemed to be that whilst it was good; it wasn't quite up there with Lies and The Mother We Share. Having lived with the song for a short while we’ve come to a different opinion. It’s what we all call ‘a grower’. A big one. We're not sure where the chorus starts and the verse ends, it all just flows so perfectly. Maybe the "and if I recover will you be my comfort" bit is actually a pre-chorus and the part that starts "I'll give you one more chance," bit is actually the main chorus? But ultimately who cares about structure? We'll leave that to the musos. All we know is that we need to recover from Recover, we're going for a lay down. Phew.

Here it is, just in case you haven't heard it yet. From our favourite new band in the world right now.

Chvrches - Recover

* Footnote : Remember back in September when we suggested that wouldn’t it be rather brilliant if in the interests of dictionaries and angry English teachers everywhere Chvrches got together with Curxes ? Well they have. The south coast blitz-pop duo has produced what is known as the 1996 remix of Recover. It will be on the Chvrches EP due March 25th. We’ve been lucky enough to hear an advance copy of it and all we can say for now is that by putting together two of the finest C-word bad spelling groups the result is nothing short of spectacular. Expect the sound of naked robots raving with lazer throwing ghosts in a gigantic industrial theme park before they all go home together and boff (yes boff - it's a good word, we should use it more often) each others brains out in an all night shagathon. It’s our favourite remix of the year so far. 

Blog Sound of 2013 - Results

The Blog Sound poll aims to identify the most popular emerging acts amongst UK music bloggers and was organised for 2013 by this blog together with the Von Pip Musical Express.

The votes have been counted, the results are in and they can now be revealed.

Congratulations to Haim, this years most voted for.

The 5 artists out of the 170 nominated that received the most votes by the 49 UK music blogs that took part in the poll are

1^st Haim

2^nd Chvrches

3^rd= Savages

3^rd= Pins

5^th The Neighbourhood

The number of nominations cast for the top 2 bands in the poll was incredibly close, with Haim holding off Glasgow’s electronic pop finest Chvrches by just one vote. These two acts were considerably ahead of all the other bands that received votes, garnering more than double the number of nominations than the equal joint third placed acts – the indie guitar bands Savages and Pins. The Neighbourhood came in fifth and represent America’s second band on the shortlist. It’s interesting to note that all five acts are bands. Solo musicians didn’t feature at all. There are also some similarities to the 2012 list which also featured all bands, the majority of the acts having female vocalists, the winner being American and one Scottish act appearing in the Top 5 (although Chvrches second place has little to do with a strong Scottish vote, far from it, in fact their votes came from a whole variety of different types of blogs throughout the UK).

The Blog Sound 2013 poll’s intention wasn’t to criticise the BBC Sound of poll but simply to canvas a particular demographic – that of UK music bloggers - who have fairly small representation on the panel of pundits who vote on the BBC poll. The 2013 Blog Sound long list contained 7 acts that were also then revealed to be on the BBC Sound of List (AlunaGeorge, Chvrches, Haim, Laura Mvula, Palma Violets, Savages and Tom Odell) and 8 that weren’t (Curxes, Daughter, Mo, Pins, Randolph’s Leap, Rhye, Seasfire and The Neighbourhood).

The winners Haim have been one of the most talked about bands of the last few months and were the second most blogged act by UK Hype Machine listed bloggers in 2012. They also featured in Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2013 feature in November alongside Chvrches and Savages. Haim consist of three sisters from California and were originally in a band with their parents called Rockinhaim. They signed a record deal earlier in 2012 and will release their debut album in 2013. Their sound fuses elements of classic rock, r ‘n’ b and pop and they have been compared with the likes of Fleetwood Mac, TLC and Wilson Phillips.

You can hear all of the 5 shortlisted acts in the Soundcloud stream below.

The songs are

Haim – Forever

Chvrches – The Mother We Share

Savages – Husbands

Pins – LuvU4Lyf

The Neighbourhood – Let It Go

Blog Sound 2013 Shortlist Playlist

So, with music bloggers being a knowledgeable bunch with a good eye and ear near the musical coalface, the question is are these 5 acts going to be the multi-million selling artists of tomorrow in the UK? The evidence suggests almost certainly not.

First, because bloggers were asked to name what they considered to be the best emerging talent. ‘Best’ doesn’t actually mean ‘commercial big hitters’ – it really means ‘aligns with my taste’ and many of the blogs represented on the poll have underground / leftfied / indie tastes or specialist taste. For example, in 2012 Ed Sheeran had one of the biggest selling albums in the UK, yet his song The A-Team was blogged about by only 1 UK based Hype Machine listed blog (this one).

Second because, as mentioned earlier, all of the acts on this poll are bands and if 2013 follows the current trends, groups (with the exception of Coldplay, One Direction and Mumford & Sons) just aren’t selling as well as solo artists. Take a look at this list of who sold the most albums in the UK in 2012 for the evidence.

Third because last year's Blog Sound 2012, whilst unearthing some interesting acts that were very different to the BBC Sound of 2012 failed to produce any real big commercial hitters in the short list.

But then rock n roll doesn’t always follow the rules. So we’re throwing the Rules Of Pop (volumes 1,2 and 3) out of the window and instead  we’re just going to listen, watch and enjoy whatever happens to music in 2013. We’ll see you for the Blog Sound of 2014? Maybe some of the new acts we feature this year on the blog will turn up on that?

Breaking More Waves 5 nominations for the Blog Sound Poll were Haim, Chrvrches, and Curxes (who all made the long list and 2 made the short list in 1st and 2nd) plus Avec Sans and Alice Jemima. Neither Avec Sans or Alice Jemima made the list, but yesterday Alice Jemima was featured on BBC Radio 1's new music takeover with Rob Da Bank playing 3 songs in session at the world famous Maida Vale studios. You can hear the whole session (which is stunningly beautiful, particularly the last track When You Dance here).

That's all our end of year lists / polls and such like done now. Let's get back to new music shall we ?

Ones to Watch 2013 - #1 Chvrches

Breaking More Waves first One to Watch for 2013 should come as absolutely no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Chvrches tick every box in our thumbs up checklist. Not that love of music should simply be a box ticking checklist. There has to be more than this. Sometimes the band might have the right sound, the right look, the right attitude and yet that indefinable something , let’s call it soul for want of a better word, is missing.

This Glasgow based electronic pop trio have that indefinable something.

Ever since their debut song Lies – a mix of Gary Numan style computerisations and Fix Up Look Sharp beats - first slammed its way into our ears via the still-on-it boutique pop label Neon Gold under the name Churches we were hooked. (See our original post from May of this year here which followed a day or so after Neon Gold’s). Its synth driven beauty was muscular, rougher and dirtier around the edges than a lot of current electropop; it was the metaphoric sound of someone having unbridled sex straddled over a keyboard. 

A few months later and the blogs went even more ga-ga orgasmic as the band replaced the ‘u’ with ‘v’ and delivered the infectious The Mother We Share, an altogether different work that found comparisons with the likes of Purity Ring and The Knife.

So the buzz / hype had kicked in. Which is all well and good, but if the band doesn’t possess enough decent material and the right attitude to deal with it, they’ll soon be drowned out.

Thankfully it seems that Chvrches have both. Iain Cook, Lauren Mayberry and Martin Doherty, the three members of this collective, have all been in other bands. So they are not naïve to the music industry and its workings. Plus the reports from early shows this year (they performed their first gig under the name Shark Week) have been 100% complimentary. Likewise the songs they've been performing on a Radio 1 session this week, including the magical We Sink (featuring male rather than their normal lead female vocals) and the electroclash pulses of Science & Vision sound impossibly good. So we absolutely believe Chvrches are more than capable of riding this wave.

Let’s sing the praises of these new dirty angels of modern synthpop. It’s why we’re listing them at number 1. Heaven isn’t just found in the house of god. 

Chvrches - Lies (Video)

Churches - The Mother We Share