Press release
Lauren Mayberry, the frontwoman for acclaimed electro-pop band CHVRCHES, has announced the release of her eagerly awaited debut solo album, Vicious Creature, coming this December 6th on Island Records.
Pre-order is available HERE.
Vicious Creature is both a startling new era in Mayberry’s artistry, and the culmination of two decades of life in a band that came before. Across its songs, she writes about sexuality and empowerment from a profoundly personal perspective for the very first time, reconnecting with the icons of her youth (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna) as well as ‘90s British girl groups such as All Saints and Sugababes, whose music made a formative impact on her in the 2000s.
For her first full-length release outside of CHVRCHES, Mayberry sought freedom: from rules, expectations and preconceptions. Working with prolific producers like Greg Kurstin, Matthew Korma, Tobias Jesso Jr., Ethan Gruska and Dan McDougall, she accessed not only a new world of inspiration but the deep well of creativity she’s had within her all along.
“So much of this process has been an exercise in empowering myself to listen to my own intuition – something I really trained myself out of,” Mayberry says. “That’s ultimately why you start making things – because you felt a feeling, and you wanted to articulate that somehow. I think it was important for me to relearn that kind of independence, and recognize what I bring to any table I choose to sit at.”
Over the course of the past year, Mayberry has been sharing songs from the new record, most recently the Brit-pop infused “Something in the Air”. Previous releases include “Shame,” “Change Shapes” and “Are You Awake.”
Today, she reveals “Crocodile Tears,” a track written with Matthew Koma and Ethan Gruska. Mayberry wanted to adopt “a sort of character where I could really let go of the idea that I need to be ‘nice,’ because I think that holds so many women back in their lives. If I didn’t have to be seen as ‘nice,’ I would feel comfortable telling certain people to fuck off when they treat me like shit – on this record, and in these songs, I get to do that.”
