The Bones Of What You Believe

DID NOT LISTEN - No good reviews, so Couldn't be bothered… Decided to listen to Troye Sivan instead

I'd guess there's a few scenes in direct-to-streaming movies where one of these songs hits just right. A pop album that makes no attempt to differentiate itself, barely any attempt to make the listener feel anything. Musically it might be about a 2. As a cultural marker it's something like sitting on the couch watching nostalgic Netflix, reminiscing, "remember when we used to think about pretending to try?". 1 star. hated. (⌐■_■)

Listening to Chvrches was not a religious experience.

Another modern take on 1980s synth-pop. Boring, uninspiring, and a waste of time.

Why do I remember liking this?

Bit odd and lax

1. mother - 1 2. zink - 1 3. gun - 1 4. tether - 1.5 5. liez - 1 6. tide - 1 7. recover - 1 8. night - 1 9. zcience - 1.5 10. lungz - 1.5 11. throat - 1 12. light - 1.5 13. hand - 1 14. bonez - 1.5 15. gun - 1 16. mother - 0

Pop halt

Utter rubbish

I thought I might like this more when I revisited it but I really didn’t. It’s insipid. Cannot work out how or why this would be rated.

Sorry but I'm not religiovs

nope no thanks

Per Wikipedia: 'Kyle Ryan of The A.V. Club complimented Mayberry's songwriting and wrote that Chvrches "have crafted one of the year's best albums, which means that buzz won't be dying down any time soon." ' Well, it *did* die down. The more Chvrches released albums after this debut, the less the rave was noticeable. And so reviews for that cheesy synth pop band became less and less positive, until ten years later, virtually no one gives a rat's ass about their music. And truth be told, the latter was not even that extraordinary in that debut LP. Chvrches is, for all intents and purposes, a watered-down version of The Knife / Fever Ray, Baths or early Grimes, without the quirks or the creative spark that made the latter artful, mesmerizing or inspiring. With a different, more sophisticated chord sequence, cuts such as "Lies" or "Science/Visions" could have had some merits. Unfortunately, style *always* takes precedence over substance in *The Bones Of What You Believe*, a revealing title in the sense that there's zero "flesh" in this album. The result is the blandest harmonies and the most predictable vocal lines you can imagine this side of late-noughts / early 2010s "poptimism". Lauren Mayberry is not even that stellar a performer. Behind all the gloss, some of the vocals have their share of flaws and undercooked aspects. And for a record with such obvious commercial goals, such flaws are laughable at best. So including this record in a 1001 "essential albums" list only betrays how out of touch said list has become for the last two decades. Dimery and co. trying to stay "hip" during the 21st century mostly produced blunders of epic proportions. As is the case here. Incredible how this album aged fast. You can bet your boots the next time there will be an eighties resurgence, most listeners with a decent knowledge of music history will still dismiss Chvrches as a mere footnote about passing trends that don't matter in the long run (file under "poptimism", once again). Of course, that will take out Taylor Swift fans, who might see some sort of lineage between Chvrches and their idol's latest synth-pop "era". But are Taylor Swift fans *really* interested in music history? The jury's still out on this one... 1/5 for the purposes of this list. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 + 1) Number of albums left to review: 170 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 361 Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 208 Albums from the list I won't include in mine: 265 (including this one)

1.6 I ended up skipping part way through every song, that can't be good.

Too pop.

Scottish synth-pop, so I should like it but I rather prefer acts like the Knife, Fever Ray, Ladytron, Robyn etc. Would have gone for 2*, but the lyrics are bringing it down.

Beats me why this is on the list. The overall sound of the band is not that bad, but the vocals are quite annoying and the songs are extremely formulaic.

Someone discovered their grandma's synthesizers!

Will Never listen to that album anymore, really not interesting

how on earth did this make it on the list

obvs sounds like a parody of 2013 synthy indie pop. so incredibly samey and boring. feel like you had to be there to get it.

This over-produced and overblown sound is most of what I hated about 80s synth pop. Sadly more Howard Jones than The Human League. This has taken the generic bits of that style and ditched any of the rough edges that made it interesting.

Did not like this.

1 - I had heard of these guys but never listened to them, and was surprised to see them on the list. I was excited to see if I’d been missing out all this time…I had not. This album does not belong on this list. Every song sounded the same, there was nothing ground breaking in it. Against other albums in this list it lacks any maturity.

I tried, but I just cant 1

Get the fuck outta here with this

Meaningless background music that the radio plays on your way home at 9pm that makes you want to kill yourself

I am so wrong for this

Absolutely horrible. Couldn’t make it more than 3 songs without needing to grab the sick bucket

Very meh. I like 90s EDM and EDM influenced music better

1.5 Synth pop. Not for me.

Garbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage

I tried so hard to escape this style of music when it was popular in the early 2010s. Now it comes back to haunt me.

No

trash

Tries to be poppy without being catchy, tries to be experimental without pushing the envelopes. In other words, it doesn't know what it's trying to be, and it still fails at it. Good night. 🦴

I just so wanted to like this band but it's just derivative trendy pop and it's just so so samey too. I'm sorry. But there I've said it. It's like they bought a load of 80s and 90s electro-pop records and thought "None of our potential fans will have ever heard of these great bands so lets copy them plus let's get an attractive lead singer too" then lo-and-behold people flocked from far and wide to pay homage.

Bastante flojito la verdad. Medio monotónico, podría haber sido un discazo de ruta, pero está todo en un nivel, nunca termina de bajar, nunca termina de subir. Buena producción y bases igual Sobra gomina

Too poppy and upbeat for me

No

Seriously why is this garbage on the list

not much happening, like at all, swear its the same song played on repeat for 50 mins feels like credit music for an animated film i would watch if i was 10 again

I'd rather listen to Lana Del Ray