Yes, it’s pronounced “Cha-ver-ches” like the proper Latin…
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[7.10]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Chvrches’ members have tenure in Glaswegian indie rock royalty like Aerogramme and the Twilight Sad, but you could have fooled me that they were veterans of Drive Thru-style pop-punk and emo. It’s all here: the cloud-high bubblegum music, the heightened pace, the gutsy melodrama of it all. Like a lot of that era’s pop-punk, “Gun” appears a smidgen too impressed with its juxtaposition of the sweet and the tetchy. Like the best of that era, it’s allowed to get away with it.
[8]
Iain Mew: The surging, sparkling synth-pop makes a great first impression, but the more I listen to “Gun” the more I go off it. The UK doesn’t have as fraught a relationship with the gun as the US, but matching that prettiness to “I will be a gun” is still disturbing and the song-writing doesn’t have the weight to do anything with that queasiness or even convince that it’s what they were going for.
[4]
Patrick St. Michel: Remember when Chvrches were late-comers presumably clinging to the feet of Purity Ring and AlunaGeorge, the trio whose name you had no idea to pronounce? Welp, turns out they went and made the best song of the lot. “Gun” works because it concerns itself less with interesting production touches (the reason “The Mother We Share” drew those Purity Ring comparisons in the first place) but rather just being an unstoppable electro-pop number. Save for a respite a little over midway through, “Gun” just plows forward, undeterred. It’s uptempo but never smothering, the flurry of synths leaving enough room for Lauren Mayberry’s vocals to come through clearly. Despite the peppy soundtrack, her lyrics veer toward darkness and… wait, did you think, “Oh, like Purity Ring?” Not quite: that duo’s words are more unsettling, shrouded in vagueness. “Gun” is built around violent metaphors, full of the titular object along with knives and arsine. It’s simple but gripping stuff, and when combined with that music, results in a hell of a pop song. And something all Chvrches’ own.
[10]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m more OK with Chvrches if I think of them not as a trapless Purity Ring but a synthed-out Sarge. The naivety works here, even if the metaphor doesn’t quite (“I would be a bullet,” you mean?) But while guns don’t kill songs (c.f.), clutter does.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The rhetorical questions in the chorus, kaleidoscope synths, and thudding sequencers deserve a singer who doesn’t layer the cuteness (think what Betty Who would have done), not to mention a songwriter who understands you don’t “swing” a gun.
[5]
Crystal Leww: Lauren Mayberry’s sugary sweet girlish voice should not work, and the similarly pretty flourishes and pings shouldn’t work either. Other girlish voiced electropop artists have pulled off anger well, but it’s almost always tinged with a hint of sadness. This is an angry track promising revenge; nothing but nasty, mean, violent vengeful fury here, and yet, it bangs.
[8]
Will Adams: Offers more of what Chvrches have been lauded: a heaping of tart synths and Lauren Mayberry’s feather vocal. But the bisected chorus confuses, and it’s hard to find the true center of “Gun.”
[6]
Edward Okulicz: The synth bass and beat are just a few pops away from 80s Whitney, and pick up the ball Donkeyboy dropped when they declined to hire a full-time female vocalist. The dynamics are weird too, as the song actually hits its loudest peak early on. It’s a successful trick, because the chorus is great enough to burrow into your brain on the first run-through, and all the better to savour Lauren Mayberry’s aerobicised coos of violence.
[9]
Brad Shoup: The choice to make the first chorus explosive, and drop the levels for the second, is an interesting one. The sentiment turns from triumph to grim warning. Even those triggered bgv splashes don’t sound like marshaled support… they’re more like the ecstasy of anger. Re-gender the singer and I’d likely have an issue with the breathless point-taking and metaphorical violence, but it’d be a different song, wouldn’t it?
[7]
David Lee: Here Lauren Mayberry plays Storm, glaring at her ex-lover as he scrambles to flee from her voltaic clouds that threaten downbursts of galloping synth washes and torrents of gleaming digital hailstones. “Hide, hide,” she warns. But it’s more a gesture than an actual caveat: fury this magnificent is inescapable.
[8]