Alvvays Changing: From Dreamy Indie to Energized Power-Pop
Graphic by Cate Banks
By Patrick McGill
It’s been a quiet five years for the Canadian indie-pop group Alvvays. Before going radio silent, the group released their sophomore album Antisocialites in 2017 to heaps of critical acclaim, garnering them a Juno award and a fanbase eager to hear what’s next.
On their new record, Blue Rev, which dropped earlier this week, frontwoman and lyricist Molly Rankin seems both aware of their elevated status but also their newfound anticipation as she croons the first line of the opening track “Pharmacist,” “I know you’re back…”. However, rather than giving the fans more of what they’ve come to expect, “Pharmacist,” and the rest of Blue Rev, signal a new, power-pop, oriented sound that doesn’t alter what made them unique in the first place.
Detailing the return of an ex, “Pharmacist” not only displays updated sonics but also a grand lyrical maturity. Still intact are the shoe-gaze and dream pop atmospheres that made Antisocialites so attractive. Effects loaded guitars create grand swells that set an emotional setting which are undercut by college-rock guitars. It brings a new melody forward approach that the band and these new batch of songs are all better for.
Rankin was always a great lyricist, able to make hazy allusions like in “Dreams Tonite” about living “. . . your life on a merry go-round / Who starts a fire just to let it go out?” that complimented the dreamier sound. Blue Rev, in contrast, features bouts of that but have much more personal and thought out inspirations behind them. They are beautiful and abstract yet relatable, the fact that the music behind it is both energetic and mesmerizing is the bonus.
Full of heartache and anxiety, most of the songs on the album derive inspiration from breakups as well as the hardship of trying to escape an old flame in a day and age where we are ultra connected. They express this by mockingly scrolling through an ex’s profile in “Very Online Guy” or remembering them in a bout of self-reflection, seen in lyrical standout “Many Mirrors.” “Now that we’ve passed through many mirrors / I can’t believe we’re still the same.”
It is a shame, then, that the first half of the record’s mix seems much more interested in the instrumentals, which is sometimes to its benefit. “After the Earthquake” and “Pressed” feature amazingly produced guitar lines reminiscent of jangle pop greats like The Smiths or Felt but never feel like a pastiche or novelty. They feel perfectly placed and are tastefully played by guitarist Alec O’Hanley, earning their rightful place up front in the mix for most of the song. The softer “Tom Verlaine,” on the other hand, is much less intricate musically and Rankin’s voice is so buried beneath the synth chords that it makes it one of the few songs on the album that’s a slog to get through.
What makes the album stand out not only within Alvvays discography but amongst the many great records of this year is the second half. Put simply, “Velveteen” to the final song is a devastating, instrumentally varied, string of songs that molds the heartache Rankin introduced in “Pharmacist” into an emotionally satisfying arc of being broken by failed love into a triumphant message of personal strength. “Pomeranian Spinster,” which begins as a bouncy and fun post-punk groove coalesces into a distorted freakout, musically displaying someone ready to take on the world and the eventual breakdown from realizing how hard that is. That sour note worked into “Bellinda” is a cautiously optimistic view that looks towards the future rather than dwelling back on the past. “Moving to the country / Gonna have this baby / See how it goes.”
Rather than give the happy ending, crafting the conception that everything worked out for the album’s protagonist, Alvvays uses outro “Fourth Figure” to reinforce the sad truth that some people will always be a part of you. It is an ambiguous, risky, way to end the record and it somehow completely works, refreshing your viewpoint on the album’s messages and demanding you to listen again. It’s choices like this that paints Alvvays as a band not wanting to take the easy way out or churn out something half-baked, even if it means waiting up to five years for the final product. But if waiting five years means they can accomplish a collection of songs this good, I’d be more than happy to wait longer.