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On Sale: Friday, February 23rd at 10am PTđď¸ bit.ly/Alvvays2024
This Event is All Ages and General Admission
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Alvvays
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 2017âs Antisocialites, that stunning sophomore record that confirmed the Toronto quintetâs 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 doesnât write on the road. A watchful thief then broke into singer Molly Rankinâs apartment and swiped a recorder full of demos, one day before a basement flood nearly ruined all the bandâs gear. They subsequently lost a rhythm section and, due to border closures, couldnât 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 doesnât simply reassert whatâs 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.
The results are beyond question: Blue Rev has more twists and surprises than Alvvaysâ cumulative past, and the band seems to revel in these taken chances. This record is fun and often funny, from the hilarious reply-guy bash of âVery Online Guyâ to the parodic grind of âPomeranian Spinster.â Alvvaysâ self-titled debut, released when much of the band was still in its early 20s, offered speculation about a distant futureâmarriage, professionalism, interplanetary citizenship. Antisocialites wrestled with the woes of the now, especially the anxieties of inching toward adulthood. Named for the sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton, Blue Rev looks both back at that country past and forward at an uncertain world, reckoning with what we lose whenever we make a choice about what we want to become.
The Beths
On The Bethsâ new album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokesâ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but theyâre also character sketches of relationships and more importantly, their aftermaths. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed youâve become in a person, once theyâre gone from your life?
The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. The albumâs title track âExpert In A Dying Fieldâ introduces the thesis for the record: âHow does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know itâs over when you canât let go?â Stokes asks. âLove is learned over time âtil youâre an expert in a dying field.â
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 SW 6th Ave, Portland, OR 97204-1410, United States,Portland, Oregon
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