Years ago, my roommate confessed that she often finds herself disappointed with Alvvays’ self-titled debut album because of its washed out production, drowning out the sweetness and simplicity of the band’s garage-crafted indie pop songs. She had a point –a song like “Archie, Marry Me” would not feel out of place on the charts with the right pop production sheen, especially with today’s sensibilities for celebrating fun pop hooks through guitar melodies. While there is little to complain about with the improvements the band made on their follow-up, Antisocialites, its songs fell a hair short of the standard Alvvays set in casually blending the melodic and lyrical earnestness of youth and romance.
Blue Rev, on the other hand, wastes no time hiding its ambitions for growth, evoking similar leaps forward made by other contemporary indie pop artists in the time since the release of Antisocialites (e.g. MGMT’s Little Dark Age, Kero Kero Bonito’s Time ‘n’ Place). At many times, its narrator, by way of Molly Rankin’s sweet and wistful vocal delivery, sings from the brink of a breakdown. In past songs, the pop perfectionism of songs like “Dreams Tonite” mirrored their idealized conceptualization of love at first sight, synthesizing “ happily-ever-after” into a picture-perfect soundtrack. Consequently, the regretful nostalgia and pained resistance to heartbreak on Blue Rev shatters the song structure into fragments. It is the sound of someone picking up the pieces of their hopefulness after everything in their foolproof plan for eternal happiness falls apart. And perhaps intentionally, Rankin’s words saunters back and forth between taking center-stage and burying itself behind distortion effects and early-Smiths-esque jangle pop guitars. She makes sure you can hear her excoriate herself on “Tile By Tile” (“I shouldn’t have ever been calling it love,” she admits to herself repeatedly, each time as if it was the first time this revelation hit her). “After The Earthquake” is a condensation of the album’s tendency toward mutable self-flagellation: stubborn demands to pull yourself out of the mess you’ve somehow survived, followed by softly sung intrusive thoughts (“Why would I ever fall in love again when every detail is over the guardrail?”), back to dogged demands for closure and progress (“Are you awake now?”). When the lyrics take the backseat to the torrential noise and melodies, it tells you all you need to know: the clarity of thought is suffocating. The narrator has resigned herself to letting the emotions take the wheel, hoping they will drive her to anywhere that isn’t here and now. As long as the band retains the implacability present on Blue Rev, it will no doubt be worth another five-year wait to reach the destination.
★★★★
Delian Media 