Liner Notes 13. Oct. 2022

Alvvays' beautiful new record makes a run for AOTY, the world's ugliest music, buying a thrill, and more!

Oct 13, 2022

Good morning! This week, I’ve got a heapin’ helpin’ of reviews, industry news, and #musictwitter mayhem. No paywall this week, either. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Alvvays- ”Blue Rev”

I was late to the Alvvays fan club meeting. I liked “Archie, Marry Me” well enough, but dismissed most of the rest of their work out of hand. I found “Plimsoll Punks” mildly annoying and twee. I saw copies of their records sitting in the crates at my local record store and wondered what the fuss was about. It all felt like a band trying too hard.

To a larger point, that sort of overthinking has brought down more than one band. Dream pop in particular can often collapse under its own clever weight. Ditto bands that trip over the line between intricate and blender full of chords.

None of that applies here.

Lead singer Molly Rankin has always written lyrics that make you think. Pining for lost love has been done. Songwriters do it because it’s universal. Writing about the gut punch of running into an ex’s sibling at the drug store and learning they’re doing great? That’s novel and relatable. Unrequited love sucks. If Robin Zander crooning “I want you to want me” is lyrically elementary, “Pharmacist” is doctorate-level stuff- a whole novel in 20 words.

I know you're back
I saw your sister at the pharmacy, picking up
Said you had that new love glow

After a series of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad events, the band wound up in the studio in Los Angeles, ready to record. Alvvays has always taken a methodical approach to crafting/recording tracks, often recording demos into oblivion, only to redo those into oblivion (the blurb on Bandcamp, politely describes the band as “fans of fastidious demos, making maps of new tunes so complete they might as well have topographical contour lines.” ).

Producer Shawn Everett tossed all of that out the window, instead having the band simply play the record straight through. Twice. With only small breaks in between. As a result, the music stays clear and stirring, making sure not to dissolve into a jumbled mess—or an overextended mess- the longest track on the record clocks in at 3:30.

Intricacy be dammed.

This is a record where the chords are all in the right spots. Where the bridge on a track like “Belinda Says” is exactly as it needs to be. The sound is joyful and chaotic, but economical too. Rankin’s vocals also take a more prominent role with her vocals closer to the front instead of smothered in reverb they way they might’ve been previously.

You can hear vestigial traces of the usual suspects here (Lush, MBV, etc.), but nothing is derivative. Alvvays have taken their influences to heart, but take care to reimagine them in their own style.

Blue Rev takes the best parts of power pop, dream-pop, shoe gaze, and whatever’s going on in lead singer Molly Rankin’s mind and just makes it work. The result is an album with no skips.

“Blue Rev” might be the name of a drink from Rankin’s childhood, but this is a band that has grown up. And grown on me.

As for the record store? I’m going tomorrow. Fingers crossed they still have copies of it in stock.

Favorite tracks: Pharmacist, Velveteen, Belinda Says, Pomeranian Spinster

Willie & The Cigs- Loaded With Hits

Does anyone else remember that brief era about 20 years ago when bands trafficked in novelty? Goofy smiles, weird dress, and other antics (think Alien Ant Farm, Bowling For Soup, Lit, etc.).

Sometimes the parody was part of the act. Sometimes it tried to paper over poor musicianship. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here; only that Loaded With Hits can’t escape the shadow of that earlier trend.

A band that describes themselves as “god dang beat poet country outlaws” is already bound to send red flags, and a frontman that sounds like he’s doing Dylan songs on karaoke night doesn’t help.

Listening to the record, I couldn’t stop wondering if it was all being done in earnest, or as part of a schtick. That’s never a good sign. But hey, they have an organ, so that’s fun.

Favorite track: Watchin’ Clouds

Chris Canterbury-Quaalude Lullabies

Real music about real people living real lives. Think John Hiatt with a different drawl. There’s no morality play here, no aspiration, or hero’s journey. Lullabies is all about cautionary tales. The people we meet are just livin’- and the livin’ ain’t easy.

For a world-weary record that’s awash in resignation, and what could’ve been, it’s strangely affecting and leaves you feeling, well, if not “up” then certainly relieved you’re not in the protagonist’s shoes.

Come for the music, stay for the colorful characters.

Note: This record came onto my radar thanks to the Abandoned Albums podcast, a show well worth your time.

Favorite: Kitchen Table Poet

The Prize- Wrong Side Of Town EP

On their Wrong Side Of Town EP, Melbourne’s The Prize deliver plenty of power pop, jet-fueled power chords, and a whole pile of oozin’ ahhs. This record comes out of the gate at 7000rpm, and never slows down.

Play it on your next break at work. It’ll be the most energetic 10 minutes you spend all week on the clock, and beats having to make small talk with that insufferable coworker you always seem to run into at the coffee maker.

Thoughts on any of these? Any records you think I should review?

What Was On

This week’s list of records is a bit shorter than normal. That’s primarily down to both of my sons’ soccer seasons hitting critical mass. We’re at the point where I should probably just have my mail delivered to the field.

B52s- Mesopotamia
Enumclaw- Jimbo Demo
Tangerine Truckstop-S/T
Lost Cascades-Exodus
Fleetwood Mac- Tusk
patchnotes-Golden Hour
George Benson-It’s Uptown
George Benson-Livin’ Inside Your Love
Hubba-Empty Dreams EP
Goo Goo Dolls- Hold Me Up
Aisus- Post-Regret EP
Adrienne Lenker- Songs
Glen Campbell- Wichita Lineman
Trash Can Sinatras- I’ve Seen Everything
Pixies-Surfer Rosa
Cocteau Twins-Treasure
Wipers-Youth of America
The Psychedelic Furs- Talk Talk Talk
PATHS- River Rejuvenator

What’ve you been listening to?

B-Sides

Long read: The birth and rebirth of Manchester post-punk

Manchester’s post-punk brazenly affirmed that popular music could be working-class and experimental, branching outwards from its firm roots in the visceral chaos of punk, and instead reaching for enlightenment in avant-garde theory and art. Dystopian literature determined the genre, often capturing existence in a post-industrial wasteland with a Kafkaesque lens and consequently influencing the song titles and bands. Tony Friel, the former bassist of the Fall, suggested the band’s name as he was reading Albert Camus’s profound 1956 novel The Fall; while Joy Division took their name from the 1953 novella House of Dolls by Ka-tzetnik 135633. These dark, cultural, and historical references knocked punk’s restrictive walls down, as philosophy had now become the reference point for understanding the self and humanity surrounding it. And somehow, despite the sheer intellectual density behind these albums and ideas, this wall of sound, its legacy soon to be concretely defined as “post punk,” penetrated in cathartic ways that were freeing and accessible for the masses.

Jonathan Davis of Korn has started his own line of pet products. Does anyone want to guess the name?

Nothing says “rock and roll” quite like pet products. A portion of the proceeds are going to charity, though.

The world’s ugliest music

A 10 minute Ted Talk on how sonar & a French mathematician tie into creating the world’s “ugliest” music.

Steely Dan reissuing a series of records on vinyl.

Proving that you can, in fact, buy a thrill, a series of the band’s first seven records will be reissued starting in November. All will be remastered from the original analog tapes except for:

1) September 1977’s Aja, which will be mastered from an analog, non-EQ’d, tape copy, and 2) November 1980’s Gaucho, which will be sourced from a 1980 analog tape copy originally EQ’d by Bob Ludwig. How come, you ask? According to the label, there is “no evidence the original tapes containing the flat mixes of Aja and Gaucho were delivered to the record label and it’s presumed the tapes no longer exist.”

A microscopic photo of vinyl record grooves.

I know music fans can get really granular, but man, this is next level.

Radiohead records ranked.

Sometimes I think editors just like to see the world burn. That’s really the only logical end listicles like this can produce, right?

Speaking of choosing violence, I went with 1995’s The Bends for the sole reason that “High and Dry” is really the only song I like by the band. What can I say?