A Newbury Comics exclusive color vinyl pressing. LP is opened signed by the band.

Alvvays never intended to take five years to finish their third album, the nervy joyride that is the compulsively lovable Blue Rev. In fact, the band began writing and cutting its first bits soon after releasing 2017s Antisocialites, that stunning sophomore record that confirmed the Toronto quintets status atop a new generation of winning and whip-smart indie rock.

Global lockdowns notwithstanding, circumstances both ordinary and entirely unpredictable stunted those sessions. Alvvays toured more than expected, a surefire interruption for a band that doesnt write on the road. A watchful thief then broke into singer Molly Rankins apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the bands gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to border closures, couldnt rehearse for months with their masterful new one, drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell.

At least the five-year wait was worthwhile: Blue Rev doesnt simply reassert whats 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.

There are newly aggressive moments herethe gleeful and snarling guitar solo at the heart of opener Pharmacist, or the explosive cacophony near the middle of Many Mirrors. And there are some purely beautiful spans, toothe church- organ fantasia of Fourth Figure, or the blue-skies bridge of Belinda Says. But the power and magic of Blue Rev stems from Alvvays ability to bridge ostensible binaries, to fuse elements that seem antithetical in single songscynicism and empathy, anger and play, clatter and melody, the soft and the steely. The luminous poser kiss-off of Velveteen, the lovelorn confusion of Tile by Tile, the panicked but somehow reassuring rush of After the Earthquake.

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.

This perfectly dovetailed sound stems from an unorthodoxand, for Alvvays, wholly surprisingrecording process, unlike anything theyve ever done. Alvvays are fans of fastidious demos, making maps of new tunes so complete they might as well have topographical contour lines.