Three years after receiving critical acclaim on their debut album, the indie dream-pop band from Toronto, Alvvays, have managed to nearly match, if not surpass, the artistic excellence of their debut with their newly released record, “Antisocialites.” The record, sporting a more refined sound, explores the nature of modern relationships with an indifferent, balanced approach.

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The first two tracks of “Antisocialites” set the tone of the album with near perfection, like a kind of thesis for the narrative that emerges soon after. The opening track, “In Undertow,” introduces immediately the idea of a toxic, even suffocating relationship, as the couple “toss[es] and turn[s] in undertow,” signifying the “time to let go.” “Dreams Tonite,” unlike the preceding track, details the failure of a relationship that never existed, but which feels equally as lamentatious, as the dreamy, ethereal, and uncertain nature of the ballad instrumentation matches the uncertainty of the chorus unanswered, “if I saw you on the street, would I have you in my dreams tonight?” While the iconography of these two songs is arguably negative, the deadpan way in which Molly Rankin delivers the lyrics makes for an indifferent vocal identity onto which the audience can project their biases.

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Each succeeding track on “Antisocialites” contributes further to the album’s mural of modernized romance. “Plimsoll Punks” and “Your Type” build from elements of the first two tracks, but ultimately deliver a more upbeat, and carefree alt-punk song design, breaking plentiful stretches of distorted guitar on “Plimsoll Punks” with lingering plucks, and an outro that seems to foreshadow later musical breakdowns. The nature of the upbeat sound lends itself to hiding some of the more graphic lyrics, like those that compare the subject to a “seashell in my sandal, that’s slicing up my heel.” “Your Type” dissimilarly, focuses more on establishing realism, detailing instances of another dysfunctional relationship, such as “gambling with your working visa [..] take a photo of the Mona Lisa / get thrown out of the Louvre.” In tandem with the cheerful instrumental, the iconography makes for a contradictory chorus, “I die on the inside every time, you will never be alright, I will never be your type.”

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“Not My Baby” halts the action a tad, but not detrimentally, with a vocal that floats just a bit higher than the grounded composition, a vocal presence echoed in the subject matter, that of being free: “now that you’re not my baby, I’ll go do whatever I want.” The free verse interlude “Hey” follows, picking up the pace with coastal guitar riffs and a story of a relationship “satisfied with making do,” far less extreme than Alvvays’ previous examples. On “Lollipop,” the audience gets a more expanded version of the insecurity expressed on “Your Type.” During the song, Rankin provides a fictive tale of a relationship with Jim Reid (of the group, The Jesus and Mary Chain) after she “saw Jim in the corridor [of the grocery store].” Rankin uses this anecdote to highlight how she might unhealthily put someone on a pedestal (“you’re a lollipop / in the form of a lightning bolt”), while she feels she is never “gonna fit that mold.” The relationship deteriorates over the course of the song, calling Jim a “lollipop in my hair, a “doorstop” when he is “lying on the bathroom floor,” and stating that she must “alter [her] state, just to get through this date.”

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While most tracks seem hell-bent on completely tainting the idea of romantic entanglements, “Already Gone” looks fondly upon a relationship, but which is ended abruptly either by intentional or accidental suicide, only briefly implied when Molly sings, “I arrived at the scene […] the officer said you were already gone.” When she goes on to say, “summer’s over,” she both refers literally to the timing of the album’s release, but also how someone’s life ended during their prime, during their summer, and now she is left to mourn the love lost.

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In the closing tracks, “Antisocialites,” takes its final form. “Saved By a Waif” seems like a simple scenario in which the speaker ‘saves’ someone who has completely fallen for them. However, the complex nuance created by referring to herself as a “waif” makes this a song about image and identity, and how Molly views herself: a “stray beast,” a kind of orphaned, outlawed, alien species, donning the heroin chic aesthetic. Despite all her mentions of dysfunctional relationships with largely problematic partners, there is an element to the equation in which she is also problematic, a waif, an outcast. This conclusion leads smoothly into the final track, “Forget About Life,” which opens with a suicidal confession, “I thought of going into the lake and swallowing.” As the synth in the background slowly grows into the space left vacant by her voice, a digitized breakdown commences, reminiscent of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a movie concerned with the idea of human placement on a cosmic scale, “underneath this flickering light.” This question of belonging is paralleled throughout “Antisocialites,” but answered instead with the irreducibly complex gray area of human relationships, full of insecurities and maladaptive idiosyncrasies, that which makes specificity relative, and romantic ideals obsolete.