Consumer Guide Album

Alvvays: Blue Rev [Polyvinyl/Transgressive, 2022]
Something bothered me about the sound of this much-admired album by Canadian power poppers I was on early only not with album three, which made many top 10s. So I got to it late by buying a CD whose hi-fi I thought might help separate the tunes proper from the shoegaze fuzz that dimmed them when I Spotified it--and still does, but less hence not decisively. Instead what converted me was yet more replays plus closer attention to the lyrics. First I noticed how explicitly collegiate they were, situating Molly Rankin both culturally, in her devotion to aesthetic usages less staid than "the lettered life" she once aspired to, and generationally, as the postgrads who populate her songs negotiate love lives they're seldom ready for. "Is she a perfect 10? Have you found Christ again?" she asks one soon-to-be ex. "You were my Tom Verlaine," another is reminded as she enjoys the feel of the breeze on her back. And the noisy double-time three-minute kissoff "Pomeranian Spinster" levels so many insults at one or more whoevers you can hardly believe it leaves room for an extra touch of anticlericalism: "Presbyterisn ministers/Travel in packs and never split/They deviate in the tiniest concepts." Rock and roll! A