Chvrches new album Every Open Eye being streamed by NPR

Sophomore slump? Chvrches are having none of that.

Chvrches’ second record, Every Open Eye, occupies similar emotional terrain, but this time, Mayberry isn’t interested in the spoils of revenge.

Iain Cook and Martin Docherty follow suit, and the band’s combined directness is thrilling. Chvrches, whose name is a permanent tongue twister (it’s pronounced “churches”, for the record), has been steadily building a fan base since emerging some two years ago. Every Open Eye takes the best parts of its predecessor and improves on them in every conceivable way. Sure, its lyrics lay bare romantic misadventures (“You talk far too much for someone so unkind / I will wipe the salt off of my skin, and I’ll admit that I got it wrong / And there is grey between the lines”), but it’s a break-up song on what is categorically not a break-up album.

That much is true of first single “Leave a Trace”, in which Mayberry delivers an unforgettable vocal melody over a raw but reserved electro backing; “Clearest Blue” is similarly minimal, before exploding midway in a climax destined to send festival crowds into raptures. “Both lyrically and musically, it’s one of the most direct things we’ve ever done”. “There’s something about doing anything in Glasgow that drives you back to a kind of melancholy”. Where the band’s fellow ’80s pop scholars use the decade’s velveteen tones to play up the decadence of isolation, the Glaswegian trio’s debut The Bones Of What You Believe mined starker British sounds – the brittle strafe of Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys’ airy erudition – to underscore the cold truth of failing relationships.

Check out the album’s track list below and head to the band’s Facebook page for upcoming tour dates.