Alvvays

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On average, all available items are processed and dispatched within 1 business day, although this is not guaranteed. Archie was worried about mounting student loans and stagnant wages, but now there are more existential problems. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs.

Alvvays - Polyvinyl Records

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. In a fantastic, life-affirming, charming, self-deprecating manner, replete with self-aware ironic smile tugging at the corner of the mouth. 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. Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O'Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. Antisocialites’ finale “Forget About Life,” a gorgeously spare singalong that’s sure to highlight future live sets, only wants to find respite tonight, drinking cheap wine amid the condos.Those aren’t the most varied of selections, but like Alvvays stagemates Big Thief and Courtney Barnett, they push toward a larger narrative. Named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton, Blue Rev looks both back at that country past and forward at an uncertain world, reckoning with what we lose whenever we make a choice about what we want to become. Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions.

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

Surf-tinged single “Plimsoll Punks” bops up against the barriers of scene and genre as Rankin, channeling the Television Personalities’ proto-C86 classic “Part Time Punks,” vividly skewers unspecified stick-in-the-muds (“You’re the seashell in my sandal that’s slicing up my heel”). Rankin, who grew up on the East Coast of Nova Scotia as part of a famous family of Celtic folk musicians, certainly wasn’t brought up on the NME cassette compilation that became synonymous with winsome, ’60s-dappled guitar pop. With needlepoint melody and verse, Rankin and O'Hanley's songs were recorded at Chad VanGaalen's Yoko Eno studio and mixed by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing Jalen perform live knows that he is one of the most captivating performers on today's soul scene. And there are some purely beautiful spans, too—the church- organ fantasia of “Fourth Figure,” or the blue-skies bridge of “Belinda Says.Alvvays can still kick up a piercing dream-pop din, but now it’s less muffled by reverb and digital distortion. As others have stated the mix is really significantly different from the digital version and sounds more exciting.

Alvvays – Blue Rev (2022, Orange, Vinyl) - Discogs Alvvays – Blue Rev (2022, Orange, Vinyl) - Discogs

A few other sonic details I hadn't heard before revealed themselves too, which is always a nice surprise! In one recent interview, they noted how acclaim for Alvvays’ debut sometimes treated it as almost a guilty pleasure. because i know that it can't be a closetful of lace acquired recently who am i to debase in this economy?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. His full length debut on Daptone Records is equal parts raw feeling and elegance and exudes confidence and charm.