Rarely can the history of a music genre be linked to an event as clearly as in the case of indie pop.

Thirty-six years ago, the English music magazine "NME" published a cassette with songs by new bands from independent labels.

The sound was new and old at the same time: distorted guitars, punky, voluptuous, in love with melodies.

Bands like The Wedding Present, Primal Scream, The Pastels and McCarthy (forerunner of Stereolab) stayed true to this formula or expanded it and rose to fame.

Phillip Krohn

Editor in business, responsible for "People and Business".

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The Canadian quintet Alvvays made a direct connection to this productive cultural scene in the early 1910s.

Already after its first EP it toured with the Swedish band Peter Bjorn and John and Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

In 2014, he released his self-titled debut single "Archie, Marry Me," which became a cult hit.

Intense, melancholic, optimistic

The songwriters Molly Rankin, daughter of the band leader of the Celtic folk formation The Rankin Family, and Alec O'Hanley processed questions about their experience that more and more friends were getting married.

The record was a collection of little gems of guitar pop.

Like all three previous albums, it was released on the independent label Polyvinyl (Of Montreal, Anamanaguchi).

Rankin's singing mediated between laconicism and euphoria, plus bold guitar power pop.

Production was extremely economical.

The following grew.

Their second album "Antisocialites" surprised them by reaching the same intensity three years later without any loss in songwriting.

The two opening songs "In Undertow" and "Dreams Tonite" immediately took their listeners back to this melancholic and at the same time optimistic indie pop world.

Produced a little cleaner, it was a small step towards the mainstream without losing any of the charm of the debut.

High proportions of punk, a mere 32-minute long melody dance that was more successful in Britain than in Canada and the United States.

The band subsequently lost their drummer, then their bassist, and Rankin, along with a laptop containing advanced song sketches to be fleshed out during the pandemic.

The release of "Blue Rev" dragged on longer than planned.

Now the third album is here in eight years, and crazy enough their songs, which are schooled on the Teenage Fanclub, the Smiths and Pavement, as well as the C86 sampler, sound like they have always been there.

"Tom Verlaine" alludes to the coolness of the television guitarist, "After the Earthquake" and "Many Mirrors" are anthemic guitar pop, every now and then an irresistible keyboard melody comes through, as in "Pomeranian Spinster".

"Blue Rev" is thus further evidence that Alvvays are a formative band of our era.

Alvvays: "Blue Rev"

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Pias/Transgressive (Rough Trade)