Pヴァイン・レコード Blue Rev (Translucent Baby Blue Vinyl) [VINYL]

At least the five-year wait was worthwhile: Blue Rev doesn't simply reassert what's always been great about Alvvays but instead reimagines it. They have, in part and sum, never been better. There are 14 songs on Blue Rev, making it not only the longest Alvvays album but also the most harmonically rich and lyrically provocative. Every element of Alvvays leveled up in the long interim between albums: Sheridan Riley is a classic dynamo of a drummer, with the power of a rock deity and the finesse of a jazz pedigree. Their roommate, in-demand bassist Abbey Blackwell, finds the center of a song and entrenches it. Keyboardist Kerri MacLellan joined Rankin and guitarist Alec O'Hanley to write more this time, reinforcing the band's collective quest to break patterns heard on their first two albums. Alvvays' self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in their early 20s, offered speculation about a distant futuremarriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship. Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. 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. Sure, it arrives a few years later than expected, but the answer for Alvvays is actually simple: They've changed gradually, growing on Blue Rev into one of their generation's most complete and riveting rock bands. Make sure you don't miss this once in a lifetime album - on Asia exclusive limited transparent baby blue viny!