It’s still another two months until Chvrches’ third album–the appropriate (yet somehow underused for the twenty-first century) title being Love Is Dead–will be released on May 28th. Even so, we’ve gotten quite a snapshot of the auditory and lyrical themes of the offering. That being said, the third single from their thirteen-track record, “Never Say Die,” details yet another melancholic portrait of a relationship on its last legs, with lead singer Lauren Mayberry delivering vocals at their utmost earnestness as she demands, “Weren’t you gonna be sorry and weren’t you gonna be pure?/Weren’t we gonna be honest and weren’t we gonna be more?/Didn’t you say that? Didn’t you say that?”
Whatever might have been said, it’s clear that it’s not fitting the bill of how she expected it to be. Unfortunately, when your mantra in romance is “Never Say Die,” you’re invariably going to end up being quite unhappy, the tone of which is evident in the lament, “And I’m falling in, falling out”–of love, of course–our addictions to a nostalgic portrait of how things used to be with a particular person clouding our judgment of the present and how it will only degenerate further in the future.
The sadness that permeates Mayberry’s signature Glaswegain pipes, in turn, simultaneously permeates one’s ears and soul as she repeats, “Never, never, never, ever/Never, ever, ever say die/(Didn’t you say that? Didn’t you say that?)”–though, evidently, it doesn’t matter what was said. People say a lot of things they think they mean in “a moment.” It’s those like Mayberry who buy into the moment of so-called effusiveness that end up suffering when, unbeknownst to them, it passes for the other person, no longer interested in enduring the guilt of such questions as, “Wasn’t it gonna be fun and wasn’t it gonna be new?/Wasn’t it gonna be different and wasn’t it gonna be true?”
Something of a bookend to “Get Out” and “My Enemy” (featuring Matt Berninger of The National), “Never Say Die” serves as a sort of aural third act to the trajectory of what can best be classified as the phases of disillusionment in love. First is the repression of “Get Out,” in which Mayberry admits she was “never saying what I wanted, never saying what I needed.” Then is the bubbling to the surface of resentment in “My Enemy,” in which love quickly turns to contempt as Mayberry croons, “And you could be my enemy/And you could be my judge…And you could be my remedy/If you could show me love.” Alas, love does not end up being shown if “Never Say Die” is any indication. While there are still ten other fresh cuts to hear from Love Is Dead (including their own non-Drake “God’s Plan”), this trio seems to effectively sum up the overarching motto of an album called as such. Their recent cover of Beyonce’s 2013 song “XO” aside, it sounds like it’s going to be a dour mood on the subject of love for Chvrches of late, perhaps a reflection of times in which such phrases as “phubbing” have been coined to describe average daily human interactions. Be that as it may, analog is always better–which is precisely what love is, untenable as it may seem to be.
