Alvvays

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Over the last few months he has disarmed packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung. Your Type,” a song that has been around since before the debut album, is an uproarious garage-rock tune about a conspiracy theory-spouting art-museum ejectee who feels molecularly incompatible (“Let me state delicately/You’re an O and I’m AB”). The reference point here is less “Archie” than another Alvvays single, “Party Police,” with its mournful synths and weary entreaty, “You don’t have to leave, you could just stay here with me.

Alvvays - Blue Rev - (Tape, Vinyl LP, CD) | Rough Trade

Over its 40 years in business, PIAS has grown to be one of the largest independently-owned music groups in the world, carving out its own in-house recorded music division PIAS [Recordings]. The moment in Tom Verlaine after the bridge when the lyrics “that when you walk away, it’s gonna be for good” hit along side the keys and distorted guitar chords is everything. The songs of Blue Rev thrive on immediacy and intricacy, so good on first listen that the subsequent spins where you hear all the details are an inevitability. Comprised of various labels we know and love at Rough Trade (Bella Union, ATO, Speedy Wunderground, Phantasy, Heavenly, Mute and more) PIAS [Recordings] filter through some of the most diverse artistry to our racks, which we greatly enjoy digging into.Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. On the second day, they ripped through Blue Rev front-to-back twice, pausing only 15 seconds between songs and only 30 minutes between full album takes.

Alvvays - Blue Rev | Banquet Records Alvvays - Blue Rev | Banquet Records

Lovelorn opener “ In Undertow,” one of the best tracks here, features none other than Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake on backing vocals. Dreams Tonite,” a live staple since early last year, showcases this slight shift toward synth-y melancholy, but for all its insistent hooks, Rankin also analyzes a broken relationship from a wealth of vantage points, introduces the album’s title phrase, and indulges in lovelorn wordplay (“So morose for me, seeing ghosts of me, writing oaths for me”). Every element of Alvvays leveled up in the long interim between albums: Riley is a classic dynamo of a drummer, with the power of a rock deity and the finesse of a jazz pedigree. Recorded at Hive Mind Studios in Brooklyn, NY, with the help of producer/arrangers Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires) and crack team of a-list musicians, his upcoming album blends heavy arrangements and introspective lyrics with sophistication, leaving the listener in a blissful wash of wonderment. I initially purchased this only for the bonus CD with the self-titled and Antisocialites b-sides, but after hearing a lot of people commenting on the difference in sound between this and other vinyl releases as opposed to the digital, I decided to to give it a listen and compare.They’ve done Kirsty MacColl’s “He’s on the Beach,” also performed by the Lemonheads, solidifying a connection to both vivid lyrical narratives and fuzzed-out guitars.

Alvvays: Antisocialites Album Review | Pitchfork Alvvays: Antisocialites Album Review | Pitchfork

Vinyl sounds cleaner, the mix is lighter and brighter - not nearly as harsh and abrasive as the digital, which I can only guess is due to the heavy compression that is often used for digital mastering. Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. It’s interesting to hear how Alvvays nod to their vaunted indie forebears while also stretching against the limitations of being too closely associated with the past. Heartbreaks of different shades soon entered their lives, as did the music of Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian.

Not sure why Rough Trade thought the bigger, bulky PVC sleeve was a good idea, as it is only a week and a half old and has started coming apart at the seams. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs. This mix is super interesting, the vocals go from drowned by everything else to being front and center (After the Earthquake). Albeit cut a little hot I beg to differ on it being a fatigue inducing pressing, it’s crank-able and opens up the more you turn it up.

Alvvays: Alvvays – Tower Records Alvvays: Alvvays – Tower Records

Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O'Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. But in October 2021, when they arrived at a Los Angeles studio with fellow Canadian Shawn Everett, he urged them to forget the careful planning they’d done and just play the stuff, straight to tape. They never intended to take five years to finish their third album, the nervy joyride that is the compulsively lovable Blue Rev. A routinely great artist, much of Sufjan's universal appeal comes from his skills as a gifted narrator, pairing personal musings on love and devotion with commentary on American culture, whilst welding folk and electronica, the ambient and existential.It is definitely a different listening experience if you've only ever heard this on CD or another digital format. Alvvays broaden their palette on these faster songs, too, evoking Stereolab in the motorik freakout of “Hey,” which is memorable for introducing a drunken alter ego known as “Molly Mayhem,” but more powerfully insists, “It feels like forever since you held me like I was a human being/And I am a human being. The album (recorded at Chad VanGaalen's Yoko Eno studio and mixed by Graham Walsh and John Agnello) is loud and clear and sure. Alvvays’ self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in its early 20s, offered speculation about a distant future—marriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship.