CHVRCHES are back with “Roses,” their first original single in three years and the opening release of a new partnership with Futures Music Group, giving Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty a different label home as their fifth album takes shape.
The song arrived September 22nd, following 2023 standalone single “Over” and five years after the trio’s most recent studio album, Screen Violence. That distinction matters: CHVRCHES have gone three years without an original single, but the break between full-length albums has stretched considerably longer.
“Roses” is also the band’s first release through Futures Music Group. Industry reporting around the September 24th deal confirms Futures as the group’s new label partner rather than its management company; Lunatic Entertainment continues to handle management.
The two developments fit together unusually well. CHVRCHES are not simply returning with a song after an extended pause. They are re-entering active band life with a new recording partner, a fifth album already well into development and music that deliberately pushes against some of the synth-pop habits that established them in the first place.
“Roses” Pushes Beyond Familiar Synth-Pop
A straightforward CHVRCHES comeback could easily have reached for the enormous synthesizers, clean electronic surfaces and bright melodic lift that made “The Mother We Share,” “Leave a Trace” and “Clearest Blue” immediately recognizable. “Roses” arrives with considerably more friction.
The track pushes the trio’s electronic foundation toward darker synth-rock, with heavier textures and a more confrontational vocal performance from Mayberry. NME describes it as a dark, industrial-sounding anthem, while FLOOD calls the song an electro-rock slow-burner.
Its subject matter is equally direct. “Roses” takes aim at political nostalgia and the impulse to idealize a version of Britain that may never have existed as neatly as its defenders remember it. Rather than separating that criticism from the music, CHVRCHES build the tension into the production itself.
The song eventually reaches an authoritarian-sounding closing announcement: “If I may command your undivided attention, now we can start.” The line lands against music that has already become increasingly uneasy, giving the track a colder finish than the soaring release associated with many of the band’s best-known singles.
Premiered as BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record, “Roses” is being positioned as a first look at a broader shift rather than a stylistic one-off. Mayberry said the trio wanted to push itself when it reconvened instead of “retreading ground we’d walked before.”
“It feels like the most coherent vision we’ve had as a band,” she said of the new material, Pitchfork notes.
The Break Changed What CHVRCHES Wanted
Long pauses have not been typical of CHVRCHES.
The trio released The Bones of What You Believe in 2013, Every Open Eye in 2015, Love Is Dead in 2018 and Screen Violence in 2021, with substantial touring surrounding each stage of that run. By the end of the fourth album cycle, stepping away became part of the plan rather than evidence that the band had ended.
Mayberry has described the current stretch as the longest break CHVRCHES had ever taken between albums. When Cook, Doherty and Mayberry eventually returned to writing together, familiarity itself became something they wanted to challenge.
Hints about the results began arriving before “Roses.” In February, Doherty said the fifth album was roughly 90 percent complete and described it as the most “fearless” CHVRCHES record yet. He told NME that the new material would go harder while still retaining the elements listeners recognize as CHVRCHES.
“Roses” is the first officially released recording to put those descriptions to the test.
No album title or release date has been announced. The existence of the record itself, however, is no longer speculative. CHVRCHES have discussed it publicly, played unreleased material onstage and now issued the first single associated with their return.
Separate Projects Changed the Dynamic
The time away also gave CHVRCHES’ members something they rarely had during the band’s first decade: sustained creative lives outside the trio.
Mayberry released her debut solo album, Vicious Creature, in December 2024 after spending years writing primarily inside the CHVRCHES framework. She repeatedly made clear during the solo campaign that the band was on hiatus rather than broken up, telling The Guardian that she needed room to explore ideas separately.
Doherty also developed another project, forming The Leaving with longtime CHVRCHES live drummer Jonny Scott. Their debut album, Ultimate Buzz, arrived in April 2026 and gave Doherty a different outlet during the band’s pause.
Those projects matter to the comeback because CHVRCHES are returning after its members had time to work without automatically filtering every idea through the group. Mayberry’s description of the new record as their most coherent vision suggests the separation did not leave them searching for a shared identity. It may have made the reasons for returning clearer.
Futures Becomes the New Label Home
The business around CHVRCHES is changing at the same time as the music.
Futures Music Group was founded in 2024 by Derek Davies and Dave Wallace and describes itself as a next-generation label group built around a collective of labels, artists and entrepreneurs. Its roster includes artists such as Lykke Li, Phantogram, Mt. Joy, Cavetown and the Knocks.
CHVRCHES now appear alongside them, and “Roses” is already released through Futures. That makes the relationship materially different from a management change: Futures is directly attached to the band’s recorded music as the fifth-album campaign begins.
Davies and Wallace also have history with CHVRCHES that predates the new deal. In discussing the signing, the Futures co-CEOs described it as a full-circle relationship, joking that they had known the group “since the V was still a U.” New Industry Focus identifies Futures as the new label partner and Lunatic Entertainment as management.
For CHVRCHES, the move follows a long relationship with Glassnote, the independent label closely associated with the band’s international rise. Futures now becomes the recording partner attached to whatever follows “Roses.”
The timing makes the signing more interesting than a routine label switch. CHVRCHES are entering their fifth-album cycle as an established act with a global audience rather than as the emerging Glasgow band that first attracted industry attention more than a decade ago. The commercial job is no longer introducing the group. It is building an appropriate structure around what they want their second decade to look like.
The First Live Tests Stay Intimate
CHVRCHES are keeping the first headline shows of the return deliberately small.
The trio will play Glasgow on October 26th and London on October 29th at undisclosed intimate venues, with tickets offered through a ballot and proceeds going to charity. The Line of Best Fit confirms both dates alongside the release of “Roses.”
Those performances follow the band’s earlier 2026 appearance at London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of Robert Smith’s Teenage Cancer Trust concert series. It was CHVRCHES’ first performance together in nearly three years and included the debut of an unreleased song called “Conman.”
Mayberry used the stage that night to confirm that the band had been making a record. “Conman” therefore became the first public evidence of the fifth album before “Roses” supplied its first officially released music.
The October shows should provide another look at how the harder direction translates to CHVRCHES’ live setup. Their electronic arrangements have traditionally expanded onstage through drums, guitars and additional instrumentation, giving songs more physical weight than their studio versions sometimes suggest.
No wider headline tour has been announced. The band’s current schedule does, however, include a November 20th appearance at Corona Capital in Mexico City.
The Album Gap Has Reached Five Years
Different reports have described the length of the CHVRCHES absence differently, largely because they are measuring two separate things.
“Roses” is the band’s first original single since “Over” in 2023, making the three-year description accurate. Apple Music’s current catalog also lists “Over” as a 2023 release and “Roses” on September 22nd, 2026.
The album gap is considerably longer. Screen Violence arrived in August 2021, meaning CHVRCHES have now gone five years without a new studio album. That’s the longest full-length break of their career.
Screen Violence had already moved the band toward darker territory. Written partly during the pandemic and shaped around horror imagery, it included “How Not to Drown” with Robert Smith and gave CHVRCHES a framework for exploring anxiety, isolation and the uglier sides of visibility.
“Roses” does not simply repeat that atmosphere. Its darkness is less cinematic and more directly connected to the political climate around the band. Rolling Stone Australia characterizes the single as a move toward a rock sound while highlighting its social and political focus.
That gives CHVRCHES somewhere new to push a formula that has remained identifiable since their debut. Cook and Doherty can still build dense electronic environments around Mayberry’s melodic voice without those ingredients needing to produce the same kind of song they did in 2013.
The Fifth Album Is Already Taking Shape
CHVRCHES do not need “Roses” to re-establish what they contributed to synth-pop. Their first decade already carried the band from Glasgow into international festivals, alternative radio and a wider electronic-pop landscape that became increasingly comfortable with the kind of oversized synthesizers and emotionally direct songwriting they had been using from the beginning.
The more relevant question is what those ingredients can do now.
Mayberry’s comments around “Roses” indicate that avoiding repetition was an explicit part of the writing process. Doherty’s earlier description of the fifth album as harder and more fearless points in the same direction, while “Roses” supplies the first released evidence of what those intentions mean in practice.
The Futures deal adds a business reset at precisely the same moment. CHVRCHES are approaching their next album with a different label partner after years in which Mayberry and Doherty had room to develop work outside the group.
Several details remain open. The fifth album has no announced title or release date, “Conman” remains unreleased, and no full headline tour has been revealed.
What is confirmed is enough to make the return substantial. “Roses” is out through Futures Music Group, Glasgow and London shows follow on October 26th and 29th, and CHVRCHES have already spent significant time building the record that comes next.
After five years without a CHVRCHES studio album, the fifth one is no longer hypothetical.