PVRIS’s Upcoming Record Is A Reintroduction

Written by Natalie Melendez, Photography by Lies Vercaemere

PVRIS’s latest hyperpop-esque single, “GODDESS,” sounds nothing like the spine-chilling chords that first launched them to stardom. The Massachusetts-based band, spearheaded by musical prowess Lyndsey Gunnulfsen (known professionally as Lynn Gunn), found massive success in the rowdy tunes of 2014’s White Noise—a pop-punk powerhouse backed by religious metaphors and allusions to the occult. Nearly 10 years later, Gunn sees their upcoming fourth studio album as the opportunity to tap into alternate influences, distinguishing the band as an ever-evolving project in the business of creative freedom.  

“GODDESS'' is only the latest testament to PVRIS’s thrilling transformation. The raucous single is a follow-up to October 2022’s joint release of “ANIMAL” and “ANYWHERE BUT HERE,” the first taste of PVRIS’s forthcoming album. While “ANIMAL” is a nonconforming explosion of electronic rock, “ANYWHERE BUT HERE” is its more vulnerable, lo-fi companion—loosely reminiscent of “Loveless'' and “Old Wounds,” from 2020’s Use Me. The two tracks symbolize PVRIS’s duality in thematic inspiration and expression, highlighting their inability to stay in one place for too long.

“I think the resurgence that’s happening in pop-punk right now is the catalyst for me to refuse to do that,” Gunn said about the band’s sound in an interview with DIY Magazine. “When it was coming back, and with artists like Machine Gun Kelly and Willow pushing to do this avant garde style of it, that’s when I put the pedal to the metal and decided I wanted to do something very different.”

PVRIS have proven themselves a sonic chameleon in the past, though definitely not to their current extent. Their 2017 sophomore release, All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell, demonstrated a quick maturity of vocals and sound in what was, above all, an exquisite performance of modern rock. Gunn’s register was impressively deeper, and though angst and rage still dominated most of the tracks, the album made space for softer moments. Use Me saw the band’s first encounter with electronic influences, signaling a marked departure from their pop-punk roots—instead, PVRIS indulged in the beautiful marriage of pop-rock and electro-pop. Bearing in mind the band’s prior releases, their recent change in sound is anything but surprising. 

While there has been no formal announcement for the band’s upcoming album, Gunn has expressed that it will be available “100000% in 2023,” according to Upset Magazine. The new album comes following struggles with PVRIS’s former label—which caused delays in its initial production and led the band to reschedule their 2022 UK/EU tour to early 2023. But with a new label, Hopeless Records, and a new sound under their belt, PVRIS are once again eager to reintroduce themselves to the world. 

“Sayin' what I feel, what I do, what I want,” Gunn declares in “ANIMAL,” and indeed she is.