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“I think the variance of songs on this record appeals to the frantic nature of what’s happening in the world or with me.”
— Molly Rankin
The title ‘Blue Rev’ is a nod to Molly’s teenage years growing up in the isolated town of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. It’s a drink that some say tastes like cough medicine, but nonetheless was the youthful alcoholic beverage of choice.
“I got a message from one of my friends the other day and she said she saw it in the liquor store and can’t even look at it,” she laughs. “I don’t know why it permeated our culture in the way that it did. I’ve actually never had a cold one; it was generally pulled out of someone’s backpack in the woods. You’re sort of desperate for whatever alcohol you can get your hands on when you’re a teen…”
Home is important to Molly. Cape Breton stands as a completely different environment to the bustling city she now calls home and the opening track on ‘Blue Rev’, ‘Pharmacist’, brings forth ample nostalgia for her birthplace. “There have been elements of that [nostalgia] on our other albums, but I don’t think that it really touched on the unique Nova Scotia cultural experience [before],” she says. “[The song isn’t] really about my personal life, but there are enough touchpoints that encapsulate youth in the maritime.
“It’s a beautiful place and the people are so friendly and very funny,” she continues, “but returning to where you’re from is such a rush of different feelings when you’re trying to grapple with the way things used to be. Fronting the different experiences you had in your youth, I find that really overwhelming, just making peace with that.”
’Blue Rev’ is an album that explains a lot about where Alvvays are, not only as a band but as people too. Isolation has always been key to the way Molly has written her lyrics, having spent time on Toronto Island alone when writing ‘Antisocialites’, but now she understands the importance of these creative boundaries more than ever. “I know that I like to be alone, that’s something I know for sure. I need to be secluded from everyone else in order to conjure up something really meaningful and find those emotional lifts,” she says.
However, though many of the songs on the band’s third were born from solitude, they contain emotional multitudes bound to connect in far bigger, wider ways. Carving out your own path and forging ahead is a key theme on the record. Throughout, you’ll find characters making their own choices and taking uncertain leaps of faith. “I put my money on a horse who won’t be steered on any course or lane,” goes ‘Tom Verlaine’ while on ‘Pomeranian Spinster’ we meet a protagonist whose life seems to almost entirely thrive off chaos but is admirably determined to follow her own direction.
‘Belinda Says’, meanwhile, details a character who becomes pregnant and, in spite of town gossip, decides to start a new life in the country. “The idea of a leap into the unknown is such a beautiful image to me. Especially with a child, taking that risk and evading whatever baggage is left behind to start this new journey, it’s about the bravery that’s involved in that,” Molly says.
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