Hey, you know the book Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History Of The Indie Rock Explosion? Great book, right? Our boy Chris DeVille, managing editor of Stereogum, worked extremely hard on it, and he traced the evolving shape of "indie rock," whatever that term might mean, over the first few decades of the 21st century. I definitely immediately flipped to the back to see if I was in there, and I am proud to say that I'm mentioned in the book way more times than Scooter Braun, who's in the index right next to me. I'm probably not in the book as many times as Chvrches, though.
So did you know that Such Great Heights gets its title from a song? It's true! It does! The Postal Service, the side-project duo of Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and electronic producer Dntel released that song on Give Up, the only album that they ever released. Also, I'm just kidding. I know you knew that "Such Great Heights" was a song. We all knew that. We've heard it a million times. Now, we get to hear Chvrches cover it.
In 2023, the Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie went out on tour together, and Chvrches leader Lauren Mayberry, who was just launching her solo career, served as the opener. Now, Chvrches are back together and working on new music, though band member Martin Doherty is also just now launching his own side project the Leaving. Chvrches already covered Robert Palmer's '80s hit "Addicted To Love" for the soundtrack of the Hulu show Tell Me Lies, and now they've released their version of "Such Great Heights" for the season finale of the very same show.
Lauren Mayberry tells Billboard that Chvrches recorded both covers during the sessions for their next album: "I think having a genuine love for the show put me in a good position to know what I would want the pay off of that final scene to feel like, from a fan’s perspective... I did email Ben about it to make sure they wouldn’t find it weird and so that he didn’t think we were being creepy. He was characteristically lovely about it, of course."
Chvrches' version of the song is pleasant and faithful to the original, and it sounds exactly the way that you would expect it to sound. It's not a radical reinvention or anything. This particular cover will have some distance to go if it hopes to replace Iron And Wine's version as the definitive soundtrack cover of "Such Great Heights," but who knows, anything's possible. Below, check out the Chvrches cover and the Postal Service original.
