Alvvays to Release 10th Anniversary Reissue of Self-Titled Debut

In February 2024, just shy of the tenth anniversary of Alvvays’ self-titled debut, its second song and single, “Archie, Marry Me,” reached a rarified threshold for our streaming age—one-hundred million listens through a single platform. For the world’s biggest pop stars that’s an average achievement, but for an upstart indie rock band then writing in a backroad farmhouse on a Canadian island, it represented a staggering proof of connection and widespread resonance. Makes sense, after all: “Archie, Marry Me” is a softly stinging, pointedly funny portrait of a common end-of-youth predicament—to wed or not to wed, to involve the state and the possibility of financial ruin when you’re already saddled with student loans and just trying to survive. Instantly relatable, it is an anthem about prescribed social expectations and delighting, however noncommittally, in outcast status.

Now remastered by Bernie Grundman and reissued with deep cut “Underneath Us” to mark a glorious decade of deadpan jangle, Alvvays feels that way from end to end—literally, from the opening stalking-you-with-love anthem “Adult Diversion” to the ennui escapism of sci-fi closer “Red Planet.” In a little more than 30 minutes, Alvvays give us a song about loving someone to actual death (“Next of Kin”), how keeping secrets will destroy what you think you want (“The Agency Group”), and another incisive song about the societal demands of love and marriage (“Atop a Cake”). When Molly Rankin, Alec O’Hanley, Kerri MacLellan, and Brian Murphy cut these songs with Chad VanGaalen in 2013, long before they had a record deal, they were, in fact, young adults trying to figure out these encroaching exigencies for themselves. Again, these problems don’t age; some of us just happen to be lucky enough to age out of them.

Little of this would matter if the songs themselves didn’t stick, if the melodies weren’t as timeless as the topics. But the tension between Alvvays’ shimmer and snap and Rankin’s knowingly droll delivery connects these numbers to a brilliant and deep rock continuum, from the glories of C86 and the triumphs of Athens in the ’80s to Celtic folk’s own magnetic candor. Each of these songs lands several hooks apiece: the sparkling drum-machine drift of “Dives,” the noise-caked sway of “The Agency Group,” and, of course, the half-diffident and half-confident matrimonial plea of “Archie, Marry Me” and that pearly guitar lick. Ten years ago or ten years from now, here are ten songs to slip in your pocket and pull out when the decisions of the world seem to swirl like the very guitars that shape them.

The newly reissued vinyl will feature remastered audio, as well as the bonus track “Underneath Us,” and be available on cerulean blue vinyl with a hand drawn poster by Chad Van Gaalen. Out November 15th and available via https://alvvays.com/ 

Tour Dates

07/28/2024 - Seoul, KR - Have A Nice Trip Festival

08/02/2024 - St John, NB - Area 506 

08/04/2024 - Montreal, QC - Osheaga Festival

08/08/2024 - Oslo, NO - Øyafestivalen

08/09/2024 - Gothenburg, SE - Way Out West

08/11/2024 - Helsinki, FI - Flowfestival 

08/14/2024 - San Diego, CO - The Sound % LOW TIX

08/15/2024 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Madonna Inn %

08/16/2024 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater % SOLD OUT

08/18/2024 - Portland, OR - PDX Live @ Pioneer Square % LOW TIX

08/19/2024 - Seattle, WA - Seattle Zoo % SOLD OUT

08/21/2024 - Spokane, WA - Knitting Factory %

08/22/2024 - Boise, ID - Treefort Music Hall %

08/23/2024 - Salt Lake City, UT - Ogden Twilight %

08/24/2024 - Denver, CO - Mission Ballroom %

08/31/2024 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion ^ SOLD OUT

12/05/2024 - Toronto, ON - The Concert Hall #

12/06/2024 - Toronto, ON - The Concert Hall # LOW TIX

12/07/2024 - Toronto, ON - The Concert Hall # SOLD OUT

% w/ The Beths

^ w/ Mitski

# w/ cootie catcher

Tracklist:

01 Adult Diversion

02 Archie, Marry Me

03 Ones Who Love You

04 Next of Kin

05 Party Police

06 The Agency Group

07 Dives

08 Atop a Cake

09 Red Planet

10 Underneath Us (Vinyl Only Bonus Track)

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