8.5

GENRE: Indie Rock    
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2022

As indie music becomes a less commercial but more glorified version of mainstream, some bands struggle to channel their influences and still sound authentic, finding it difficult to untangle the strings around their fondness for pop music while still being seen as rock commissaries. Not Alvvays, though. Their new record, Blue Rev, brims with well-placed influences and a superbly-layered production akin to the likes of My Bloody Valentine and The Smiths. Over a gale of electric guitars, synths, and witty lyrics, the band is guided by vocalist Molly Rankin’s ever-so-sweet voice through an ethereal mix of dream pop and modernized shoegaze. Even in the bluest moments, their music sounds blissful.“You know it happens all the time, it’s alright,” Rankin concedes on woozy opener “Pharmacist,” as if life, no matter how messed up it gets, is still worth singing about.

Blue Rev was titled after the Canadian beverage Rev, a mix of vodka and guarana marketed for raving and nightclubbing. A drink for partying. If blue represents sadness, how can a blue drink cause happiness? These are the types of irrelevant questions your mind tricks into making in a moment like this, with women’s rights being taken away, war waging in different countries, and conservatism spreading like a cloud of bees everywhere. But much like a hopeless conversation with friends at a bar on a Thursday night, with a bunch of “it is what it is” being thrown around in between gulps, Blue Rev offers some escapism. With distant optimism, Alvvays take a deep breath, distort their guitars, blast their synths, and offer subtle political commentary through dreamy pop songs. “Knowing all too well, paralyzed, but I’ll find my way,” Rankin croons on “Belinda Says,” singing about a distraught pregnant woman in post-Roe America, her voice sounding slightly batted but not defeated. The track is a nod to Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth.”

Alvvays’ lyricism advocates for a type of quirkiness that many musicians keep away from, and their instrumentations champion music that has no problem in edging gloominess and brightness, both at once. In between guitars made woozy through pedals and dulcet slash melancholic vocals, you’ll easily hear their influences. As their distorted groove swirls above your head like lasers amidst fog, it’s possible to identify the gauziness of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless’s on “Tom Verlaine” and the jangle pop of The Smiths on “Pressed.” On “Velveteen,” Rakin’s prolonged vibrato sounds similar to A-ha’s Morten Harket’s on “Take On Me.” But there is no need to get it twisted: Alvvays is more than sound-alike music. Their influences, though recognizable, are positively stained by their own dreamy, newfangled sonic identity. The band doesn’t simply replicate the toolkit of their idols—they reinvent them, make them their own.

And then, they surprise you. There are times when they put aside the Fenders and opt for Nintendo-y synthesizers, like on “Very Only Guy,” where they carp about miserable people looking for validation in tweet replies and Instagram throwbacks, and on “Tile By Tile,” a song in the vein of Metric’s “The Void” where Rakin warbles about the inexplicable forces that drive you towards someone you love. Then, there are times when they forget about words altogether and give you a bridge made up entirely of battling guitar solos, like on “Many Mirrors.” When you think their formula is getting tired, they come at you lacking live drums on “Bored in Bristol” and spice things up with grunge-tinged chords on “Lottery Noises.”

From the precise guitar strums to the thumping drums that permeate nearly every song, Blue Rev is a well-done job by musicians seeking proper representation of their talent. Part of the reason the album is so well executed is Shawn Everett’s production, as he was able to capture exactly what the five-piece had in mind for each track and add his experienced flair to it. And then there is Rakin’s songwriting, which is really something one ought to pin down. Not every lyricist can talk about a love grown distant with her poetic and figurative competency, like when she sings, “And if I ever see a dime/You’d take that money to divide and separate” on top of the hazy guitar-strummed melodies of “Tom Verlaine.” Alvvays’ third album, Blue Rev, feels like a graduation of sorts, a work that proves the band’s ability to grind influences and boil them into their own version of shoe-gaze dream pop. The album is the perfect example of the masked seriousness that indie pop records should aim at having to be more than coffee shop music, though coffee goes as well with Blue Rev as any flavored vodka.

Listen to Blue Rev: