Alvvays continue their streak of catchy, compelling albums with the release of “Blue Rev,” which comes five years after their second album, “Antisocialites.” This album is packed with ideas, so much so that there are little interstitial songs studded throughout the album (at the beginning of “Easy On Your Own,” “Tom Verlaine,” “Velveteen,” and “Belinda Says”). There’s also a lot more noise on “Blue Rev” than there was on the first two albums, a layer of fuzz and distortion that makes “Blue Rev” feel louder and at times more like a live performance than the band’s other records—and it’s a good textural contrast with Molly Rankin’s bright, sweet voice. I’ve always heard a lot of Orange Juice-style guitar tone (especially “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever”-era Orange Juice) or Felt in the band’s songs (“After the Earthquake” on this album is a prime example), but on “Blue Rev” it feels like there’s some element of heavier shoegaze there too, or even something like the blown-out guitars of Disco Inferno or Sam Mehran’s work as Matrix Metals or Outer Limits Recordings. Rankin’s voice is at times even a little buried in the songs, moreso than on the band’s first two albums.
“Pharmacist” is a good example of this—it starts with a simple beat and Rankin’s singing, “I know you’re back/I saw your sister at the pharmacy,” (which reminds me of similar lines in Exploding Hearts’ “Throwaway Style”) then her voice is subsumed in a wash of heavy guitar distortion. Rankin has such a great talent for deploying really sonically and rhythmically pretty lines, like with the chorus here, “I know it happens all the time, it’s alright,” those repeating short “a” sounds and the punctuating “t” sounds in “it” “time” and “alright.” And at the end of her speaking part, when she sings, “I know I never crossed your mind,” the song shifts into that sort of Sam Mehran/Matrix Metals sound for a moment, and then an absolute squalling guitar solo.
“Bored in Bristol” is another favorite song on the album, maybe along with “Tile By Tile” the two purely prettiest tunes on “Blue Rev.” It’s all sweet keyboard and grooving bass and soft drums. Rankin sings about being willing to commit to almost anything to keep up with someone, “If there’s a fine/I’ll pay it/If you are destroyed/I’ll call another ride/If that’s the game you’re playing/Let me know the rules and I will be all right,” — but possibly caught in a situation where whatever she does, it’s not enough, as she sings longingly in the chorus, “Always waiting,” over and over. Rankin also has a way of writing evocative and beautiful-sounding descriptions of the most mundane suburban or urban landscapes—at the end of this song, she sings, “Artificial light cascading/cool dismissal, self-effacing/Bored in Bristol, always waiting,” which brings to mind the little scene in “Forget About Life” when she sings, “Did you wanna forget about life/with me tonight/under condominium signs.” No one has ever made light pollution and billboards sound so romantic.