Lauren Mayberry, the frontwoman for acclaimed electro-pop band CHVRCHES, releases her debut solo album, Vicious Creature, available now via Island Records. 
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. 

“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.”

Beyond her favorite artists, musicals such as Cabaret and Chicago were also an inspiration – works that dig into the dark, physical, and subversive sides of femininity. “Especially when it came to the visuals for the album, I knew I wanted them to be a part of the storytelling in a way I haven’t been able to do previously,” she says. “I wanted to have an ownership over my physical self and how I was involved in the visual part of the storytelling, so I felt like I was in the driving seat of the aesthetic rather than fitting into a landscape that wasn’t really for me.” 

Over the course of the past year, Mayberry has been sharing songs from the new record, including “Crocodile Tears,” “Something in the Air,” “Shame,” “Change Shapes,” and “Are You Awake?” 

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.

Today she released her new single, “Sunday Best,” and its accompanying visualizer. For a song Mayberry says is about “looking for light and hope when struggling with grief,” she reunited with Greg Kurstin, who produced much of CHVRCHES 2018 album Love Is Dead and whose earlier credits include Mayberry favorites by Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue, and All Saints, among others. Mayberry says it was also a thrill to work with someone with such deep connections to some of the music that had influenced her sound. “Greg really understood the references I was talking about,” Mayberry notes. “I love how the song ended up feeling vast and cinematic, but still scuzzy and strange,” she says. “That’s my favorite kind of pop music: it focuses on feelings but also imperfections.”

Mayberry has been in bands since she was 15 and has enjoyed monumental success with CHVRCHES, which has accrued more than 1.7 billion global streams to date and a string of awards and nominations. When starting work on Vicious Creature, her goal was to push herself harder than ever before to excavate a new level of musical truth from the depths of her creative soul and to create a record that accessed joy and theatricality in a way she hadn’t been able to in her previous projects.

Next year, Mayberry will tour the US, UK and EU in support of the new record. See full routing for the US below. 

North American Headline Tour 2025

1/28/25 – House of Blues – San Diego, CA

1/29/25 – Fillmore – San Francisco, CA

1/31/25 – Soundwell – Salt Lake City, UT

2/1/25 – Gothic – Denver, CO

2/2/25 – Granada Theater – Lawrence, KS

2/3/25 – Fine Line – Minneapolis, MN

2/5/25 – Thalia Hall – Chicago, IL

2/7/25 – Concert Hall – Toronto, ON

2/8/25 – Electric City – Buffalo, NY

2/9/25 – Newport Music Hall – Columbus, OH

2/11/25 – Royale – Boston, MA

2/13/25 – Webster Hall – New York, NY

2/14/25 – Empire Live – Albany, NY

2/17/25 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA

2/18/25 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC

2/20/25 – Masquerade – Hell – Atlanta, GA

2/21/25 – The Underground – Charlotte, NC

2/22/25 – The Mil at Cannery Hall – Nashville, TN

2/24/25 – White Oak Downstairs – Houston, TX

2/25/25 – Granada – Dallas, TX

2/26/25 – Emo’s – Austin, TX

2/28/25 – Crescent Ballroom – Phoenix, AZ

3/2/25 – The Belasco – Los Angeles, CA

TheWaster.com | Listen Up
12.6.2024