ALVVAYS – Blue Rev – LP – Turquoise Vinyl

LP – Limited EditionTurquoise Vinyl

Alvvaysnever intended to take five years to finish their third album, the nervy joyride that is the compulsively lovableBlue Rev. In fact, the band began writing and cutting its first bits soon after releasing 2017sAntisocialites, that stunning sophomore record that confirmed the Toronto quintets status atop a new generation of winning and whip-smart indie rock.

Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions. Alvvays toured more than expected, a surefire interruption for a band that doesnt write on the road. A watchful thief then broke into singer Molly Rankins apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the bands gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to border closures, couldnt rehearse for months with their masterful new one, drummerSheridan Rileyand bassistAbbey Blackwell.

At least the five-year wait was worthwhile:Blue Revdoesnt simply reassert whats always been great about Alvvays but instead reimagines it. They have, in part and sum, never been better. There are 14 songs on Blue Rev, making it not only the longest Alvvays album but also the most harmonically rich and lyrically provocative.

There are newly aggressive moments herethe gleeful and snarling guitar solo at the heart of opener Pharmacist, or the explosive cacophony near the middle of Many Mirrors. And there are some purely beautiful spans, toothe church- organ fantasia of Fourth Figure, or the blue-skies bridge of Belinda Says. But the power and magic ofBlue Revstems from Alvvays ability to bridge ostensible binaries, to fuse elements that seem antithetical in single songscynicism and empathy, anger and play, clatter and melody, the soft and the steely. The luminous poser kiss-off of Velveteen, the lovelorn confusion of Tile by Tile, the panicked but somehow reassuring rush of After the Earthquake.

The songs ofBlue Revthrive on immediacy and intricacy, so good on first listen that the subsequent spins where you hear all the details are an inevitability.

This perfectly dovetailed sound stems from an unorthodoxand, for Alvvays, wholly surprisingrecording process, unlike anything theyve ever done. Alvvays are fans of fastidious demos, making maps of new tunes so complete they might as well have topographical contour lines.

But in October 2021, when they arrived at a Los Angeles studio with fellow CanadianShawn Everett, he urged them to forget the careful planning theyd done and just play the stuff, straight to tape. On the second day, they ripped throughBlue Revfront-to-back twice, pausing only 15 seconds between songs and only 30 minutes between full album takes. And then, as Everett has done on recent albums by The War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves, he spent an obsessive amount of time alongside Alvvays filling in the cracks, roughing up the surfaces, and mixing the results. This hybridized approach allowed the band to harness each songs absolute core, then grace it with texture and depth. Notice the way, for instance, that Tom Verlaine bursts into a jittery jangle; then marvel at the drums and drum machines ricocheting off one another, the harmonies that crisscross, and the stacks of guitar that rise between riff and hiss, subtle but essential layers that reveal themselves in time.

Every element of Alvvays leveled up in the long interim between albums: Riley is a classic dynamo of a drummer, with the power of a rock deity and the finesse of a jazz pedigree. Their roommate, in-demand bassist Blackwell, finds the center of a song and entrenches it. KeyboardistKerri MacLellanjoined Rankin and guitaristAlec OHanleyto write more this time, reinforcing the bands collective quest to break patterns heard on their first two albums.

The results are beyond question:Blue Revhas more twists and surprises than Alvvays cumulative past, and the band seems to revel in these taken chances. This record is fun and often funny, from the hilarious reply-guy bash of Very Online Guy to the parodic grind of Pomeranian Spinster.

Alvvays self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in its early 20s, offered speculation about a distant futuremarriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship.Antisocialiteswrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. Named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton,Blue Revlooks both back at that country past and forward at an uncertain world, reckoning with what we lose whenever we make a choice about what we want to become.

The spinster with her Pomeranians or Belinda with her babies? The kid fleeing Bristol by train or the loyalist stunned to see old friends return? How do I gauge whether this is stasis or change? Rankin sings during the first verse of the plangent and infectious Easy on Your Own? In that moment, she pulls the ties tight between past, present, and future to ask hard questions about who were going to become, and how. Sure, it arrives a few years later than expected, but the answer for Alvvays is actually simple: Theyve changed gradually, growing on Blue Rev into one of their generations most complete and riveting rock bands.

Tracklist:

1. Pharmacist
2. Easy On Your Own?
3. After The Earthquake
4. Tom Verlaine
5. Pressed
6. Many Mirrors
7. Very Online Guy
8. Velveteen
9. Tile By Tile
10. Pomeranian Spinster
11. Belinda Says
12. Bored In Bristol
13. Lottery Noises