CHVRCHES have shared their new single ‘Good Girls’, taken from their forthcoming fourth studio album Screen Violence, set for release on August 27.

‘Good Girls’ was the second song the band wrote for the new album, setting the lyrical tone for Screen Violence. Frontwoman Lauren Mayberry’s powerful vocal delivers the unapologetic and vital lyrics on the misogynistic ideals inflicted upon women with urgency: “Good girls don’t cry / And good girls don’t lie / And good girls justify but I don’t / Good girls don’t die / And good girls stay alive / And good girls satisfy but I won’t”.  

“The opening line (killing your idols is a chore) was something I wrote after listening to some friends arguing about the present day implications of loving certain problematic male artists – I was struck by the lengths that people would go to in order to excuse their heroes and how that was so juxtaposed to my own experiences in the world. Women have to constantly justify their right to exist and negotiate for their own space. We’re told that bad things don’t happen to Good Girls. That if you curate yourself to fit the ideal – keep yourself small and safe and acceptable – you will be alright, and it’s just not f**king true.” 

The video for ‘Good Girls’ is the final in a lo-fi, nostalgic, and analogue-inspired trilogy directed by multi-disciplinary artist Scott Kiernan, following previous singles ‘He Said She Said’ and ‘How Not To Drown’. On the making of the trilogy of videos, director Scott Kiernan says: “The video for ‘He Said She Said’ dealt with doubt in making of one’s own image while under the manipulation of another; while ‘How Not to Drown’ sought an exit from a low, from feeling penned in by larger power structures, and refusing to succumb to them again. But ‘Good Girls’ portrays a certain learned confidence in knowing who and what you are, despite what others might conform to themselves. It’s having a clear vision, or something like a compound eye that can see at all angles. So, like ‘How Not to Drown’ before it, ‘Good Girls’ continues down from a scene in the first video and steers it to a new parallel conclusion. Near the end, we find Lauren spiralling on the studio floor, surrounded by the crew and ghosts of the previous videos, as the entire image cycle finally comes to a halt.”