by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
Expectations play an outsized roll in the music of Alvvays, the Toronto-based twee-gaze band fronted by Molly Rankin. As the daughter of legendary Canadian folk singers, Rankin’s heritage compounds the already sky-high expectations created by the deserved success Alvvays enjoyed for their first two albums. Considering the band delivered their new album, Blue Rev, after multiple all-night sessions, just barely hitting their vinyl production deadline, and that it’s been five years since their last album, one might expect Alvvays’ third album to feel overthought. On the contrary, Alvvays have created their most surprising and rewarding album yet.
“We (thought) about escaping expectations,” Rankin explained in a recent interview, “– of what we sound like, what we need to sound like, what people think we sound like, what we think we sound like. That all fell by the wayside, and we became free to explore different ideas.” And how. Blue Rev holds on to what makes Alvvays great while adding the missing elements that had previously kept the band from feeling important.
Rankin’s songwriting chops have never been in question. 2014’s world-beating single “Archie, Marry Me” made her an indie-rock Dolly Parton, a talent of epic proportions comfortable writing from multiple perspectives. All this remains on Blue Rev. When Rankin quips on “Belinda Says” that “heaven is a place on earth, well so is hell,” it’s Blue Rev’s clear-eyed response to the charming naiveté present on earlier Alvvays albums: the consequences of love often outlive love itself.
Elsewhere, on “Easy on Your Own?” – the album’s best song – Rankin sings “if you don’t like it, well, say it’s over.” It’s the sort of fuck-it-and-move-on response previously uncharacteristic of the band. Whether it’s here, or the protagonist of “Pomeranian Spinster” declaring “I don’t care if you liked me, please don’t invite me,” or the forlorn lover’s resigned admission that “I shouldn't have ever been calling it love” on the emotionally fraught “Tile by Tile,” it’s clear Rankin is now more interested in what comes after expectations have gone unmet and what that does to us.
What makes Blue Rev a good album is likewise connected. Whatever you might have expected, the music is visceral and diverse in a way not previously experienced on Antisocialites or their self-titled album. Some of this must be credited to Shawn Everett, one of the most intriguing producers working today. By encouraging the band to record the basic tracks to tape then flesh out the songs with overdubs, Alvvays achieve a sound that feels both lived-in and preternatural. It’s as if Blue Rev is the album Alvvays were always destined to make, if given enough time.
Album opener “Pharmacist” positively crackles, from the MBV guitar undulation to the fire-starter solo of guitarist Alec O'Hanley. In and out in just over two minutes, the band follows “Pharmacist” with the feedback-laden fade-in of “Easy on Your Own,” whose arcing chorus feels destined to end up butchered by drunk hipsters at your local karaoke bar. It’s an effective start to an album that twists and turns through a maze of sixties-indebted indie pop, gauzy ballads, and spiky, reverberating kiss-offs.
Yet, new sounds abound. Both “Very Online Guy” and “Pomeranian Spinster” exhibit a palate more akin to 80s no wave than mid-aughts chill. “Lottery Noises” anchors Rankin’s plaintive melody to the warmth of a Rhodes amid a flurry of reverb trails that circle the song like noctiluca. Album closer “Fourth Figure” is almost hymn-like, a reprisal of the album’s central theme set to church organ: despite what changes may come “know that I still wait for you”.
Alvvays have never expected patience from their audience. Songs zip through verses and choruses in pleasant fashion, like a bike ride along a beach. Blue Rev is no different. Still, throughout Blue Rev exists a melancholy that feels new. Or maybe it’s me. If I was expecting to digest Blue Rev the way I’ve done previous Alvvays albums – as background music on a drive to work or as a couple songs playlisted for a party – the album’s emotional resonance caught me off guard. Yes, I admit to being of an age where the timbre of a voice can bring tears to my eyes and a hungover walk on a sunny day can make me balk at life’s impertinence. But this set of tunes feels different, like the wisdom of an ancient oracle whispered in your ear.
Like anything worth remembering, Blue Rev is complex and not easily categorized. In this defiance resides a sadness, a resignation that life won’t turn out the way you wanted it to. There is also a rebirth and a power to such defiance. If Blue Rev is what we get when we let expectations go, I’d consider us cosmically fortunate. It’s the kind of album on the horns of a decision, a parallax between worlds. It matters and matters not simultaneously, and therein lies its importance. For everything we hold dear seems at once incredibly vital to the individual and laughably trivial to everyone else. Or, in the words of Rankin, “whatever gets you through the night.”