With their first new album in five years and a long tour now underway, the members of Canadian dreampop outfit Alvvays are living the rock and roll dream.
“We’re excited to be in a tin can for the next six weeks together, because that’s how healthy relationships function,” laughs singer Molly Rankin over Zoom from Toronto shortly before the band embarked on their U.S. tour, which began last Friday in Chicago.
Prior to that, the group had just returned from a small run of release-week shows in the U.K. in support of their third album “Blue Rev,” which dropped on October 7th on Polyvinyl, and are now underway on their U.S. run which will conclude on November 18th in Boston. “There are many suitcases rolling around,” Rankin noted. “Lots of hasty cuts are being made about what to take and what not to take for the next six weeks.”
But after a five-year gap between the new album and 2017’s critically lauded “Antisocialites,” what’s six weeks? The delay was largely caused by circumstances out of the group’s control: along with the pandemic, during the songwriting process, a thief broke into Rankin’s apartment and stole a recorder full of demos, then a subsequent basement flood damaged much of the band’s gear. But Rankin and Alvvays guitarist/co-writer Alec O’Hanley spent lockdown working through the new songs — which balance the band’s glistening, nostalgia-drenched undertones with an abrasive, roaring edge.
“We spent a lot of time with our keyboardist Kerri [MacLellan] – she’s my childhood best pal – and when we were allowed to be in the same room together, we would just play over demos for like three nights a week,” she said. “That’s probably the common thread I think about when working on all the songs through a really rocky period in the world – it really was just the three of us, trying to figure it out.”
While the songs were written during the pandemic, the band wasn’t able to start laying down tracks for “Blue Rev” – named after a Canadian alcoholic cola drink Rankin and MacLellan used to enjoy growing up – until October of last year in Los Angeles with six-time Grammy-winning producer-engineer Shawn Everett, who has worked with the Killers, the War on Drugs, Alabama Shakes and many others. He convinced the group to record the album straight to tape, playing through its 14-track run twice during the same studio session.
“With all of the different documents and ideas we were bringing into Shawn’s studio, it was really neat to have someone who has a grasp of where things should sit in a mix, or what a mix needs in order to feel complete sometimes,” Rankin said of fellow Canadian Everett’s sharp production. “At the end of the day we were able to beat all of the demos, which I think is a fairly rare feeling for me.”
Rankin says she didn’t worry much about living up to the fondness people have for their previous two records, pointing (with no small wisdom) to people’s ability to bring their own meanings and memories to music. “There are so many reasons why people become attached to albums that are outside of anything I’ve actually done,” she says. “It’s often little moments and periods in their lives that are interlocked with those records that you couldn’t possibly compete with.”
Although with early rave reviews from critics — including unusually high praise from Pitchfork — and generally positive fan reception to “Blue Rev,” the new record is on a fast-track toward surpassing the band’s previous heights, with many giving nods to their refreshed approach and moments of impressive vocal power from Rankin. While she says she’s has never taken vocal lessons, Rankin attributes standout moments like the boisterous outro of “Easy On Your Own?” to the comfort of Everett’s studio and the companionship of bandmates O’Hanley, MacLellan, drummer Sheridan Riley and newcomer bassist Abbey Blackwell.
“The only way I’ve survived this long doing music is just to not expect praise or success,” she says. “It’s been both extremely pleasant and overwhelming from the beginning, but I’ve never been disappointed. I just want everyone in the band to feel like what they’re doing has value and meaning, that they’re comfortable in their lives and we all feel like we’re doing something worthwhile together — as ‘summer camp’-sounding as that feels.”
Which isn’t to say she doesn’t appreciate the love from fans, the positive press and especially the audiences on their current tour, which already has sold out dates in cities like San Francisco, Atlanta and Seattle, among others.
“I didn’t know we were such a treasured nugget,” she laughs. “But it does feel a little bit like that now.”
