This year, Robert Smith took the reins from Robert Daltrey for the Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. The legendary Cure frontman served as the "cureator," putting together a lineup that includes Garbage, Wolf Alice, Manic Street Preachers, Elbow, and My Bloody Valentine. Last night's show had MBV and Chvrches, and the latter debuted a new song called "Conman."
Chvrches and Robert Smith are frequent collaborators; he guested on their 2021 track "How Not To Drown," and they've performed together a couple of times over the years. Before singing "Conman," Lauren Mayberry said, "I promise I'm not just inside watching telly all the time, we have been making a record. And we thought, since this is a special night, we would play something off that record for you guys. So be kind to us, we've never played this in front of human beings before."
2021's Screen Violence was the band's last record. Since then, Mayberry toured solo and released her debut solo album Vicious Creature. More recently Martin Doherty and Jonny Scott (who serves as a touring member) launched their own project called the Leaving, whose debut album Ultimate Buzz arrives next month.
Earlier this year Chvrches released covers of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love" and the Postal Services' "Such Great Heights" for the Hulu series Tell Me Lies. Both tracks were recorded during the sessions for their forthcoming fifth album.
Chvrches also gave live debuts to the Screen Violence tracks "Lullabies" and "Nightmares" last night. Watch below.
