Polished darkness that targets the cheap seats
Sophomore album shoots for mainstream success while showing potential star power
What’s the deal?
Anthemic electro-rock trio PVRIS — actually from Boston, not Paris — moved nearly 100,000 copies of its 2014 indie debut, White Noise, and logged a lot of time on the road doing high-profile tours with the likes of Muse, Fall Out Boy and 30 Seconds to Mars, so it’s not surprising that the band has upsized its sound to match its burgeoning headliner status on its recently released sophomore LP, All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell.
All We Know of Heaven . . . apparently recorded in a haunted church and released in August on Oregon punk imprint Rise Records, is a big, shiny slab of angst that aims squarely for the cheap seats. Its polished darkness has a hint of the “arena Goth” of Depeche Mode or Evanescence shot through with the same designs on mainstream pop success as the last couple of Paramore albums and doesn’t quite yet establish a truly distinct musical personality for PVRIS, but as a showcase for the stentorian pipes and brimming star power of vocalist Lynn Gunn it works tremendously well. The gal could level walls with her voice, and she and bandmates Alex Babinski and Brian Mac- Donald are adept at leaving their cathartic choruses rattling around in your head long after the music has faded out. It’s very easy to imagine them headlining arenas and amphitheatres themselves a couple of years down the road if the stars properly align.
We could do worse. Gunn, in particular, has become something of a hero to sad girls and boys on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks not just to the ongoing confrontations with her inner demons in which she engages in PVRIS’s lyric sheets but also to her out-and-proud celebration of the LGBTQ community, to whom she was moved to pen a “love letter” in Billboard magazine earlier this year.
“I want nothing more than for you all to feel the utmost love and freedom in being yourselves,” she wrote. “You are all exceptionally magic.” We could do with more rock stars like that. Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences:
Gunn says: “The spirit of PVRIS is moody but cryptic, but in your face and bold at the same time.” What’s a song I need to hear right now?
“No Mercy.” Just PVRIS doing the thing it does to perfection. Pretty epic. Should be a single. Also, Gunn sounds formidable on this one. Where else can I see them play?
At the Danforth Music Hall on Tuesday with Flint Eastwood.