It’s absolutely crazy to think that it’s been five years since Alvvays‘ last album, 2017’s Antisocialites, and nearly a decade since their 2014 debut, which gave us the transcendent guitar-rock standard “Archie, Marry Me” (which this writer used to propose to his now-wife over a pu-pu platter at the Kowloon a few years ago, ahem). Today (July 6), the iconic Toronto band has returned with a new single called “Pharmacist,” and word of their third studio album in Blue Rev, out October 7 via Polyvinyl.
Time has no meaning anymore, but meaning suddenly has time.
Because it takes roughly eight seconds for “Pharmacist” to assert itself as not only one of the best songs of 2022, but perhaps a song we need right now the most. It’s easy to get lost in the harmonically rich and emotionally textured sounds of this band, who somehow have the knack of absorbing the soul like the diary we’ve long meant to write. “Pharmacist” serves as the lead track to Blue Rev — an album named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton, we’re told — and definitely sets a grand tone, quite like “In Undertow” did for Antisocialites back in the Before Times.
Dive into it below, and scope all the Alvvays tour dates, which wrap with a November 18 appearance at Roadrunner in Boston.
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