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. 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. 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.

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

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. They never intended to take five years to finish their third album, the nervy joyride that is the compulsively lovable Blue Rev. As a result, their debut self-titled album is both sun-splashed and twilit - nine songs concealing drunkenness, defeat and death in tungsten-tinted pop that glitters like sea glass.Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions. 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. 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. 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.

Alvvays - Alvvays - (Vinyl LP, CD) | Rough Trade

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. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs.Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O'Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. And then, as Everett has done on recent albums by The War on Drugs and Kacey Musgraves, he spent an obsessive amount of time alongside Alvvays filling in the cracks, roughing up the surfaces, and mixing the results.

Alvvays Blue Rev | Alvvays

despite being great new music, this particular pressing is nonetheless "exhausting and unnecessarily loud" (tons of vocal sibilance) as well as "very distorted" and "muffed, [with] vocals [that] are barely audible. 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. In the unfortunate situation that a product is damaged/faulty/incorrect, let us know and we will endeavor to correct any issue as soon as possible.Edit: After playing around with the digital files a little bit, I've found that you can very closely replicate the sound that the vinyl has by significantly reducing the mid range, slightly reducing the low end and slightly increasing the high end. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Heartbreaks of different shades soon entered their lives, as did the music of Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian. Another way to consider Alvvays’ preferred place in the music landscape is through their usual choices in covers.