Back in February, just shy of the tenth anniversary of Alvvays’s self titled debut and its second song, “Archie, Marry Me,” reached a rarified threshold for streaming one hundred million listens through a single platform. For the world’s biggest pop stars that is an average achievement but for an upstart indie rock band it represented a staggering proof of connection and widespread resonance. “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 arealready 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 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 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 do not age and some of us just happen to be lucky enough to age out of them.
The newly reissued vinyl will feature remastered audio and the bonus track “Underneath Us.” The album will be available on cerulean blue vinyl and will be released on November 15. The album will be available at alvvays.com.
Alvvays Track List
1. Adult Diversion
2. Archie, Marry Me
3. Ones Who Love You
4. Next of Kin
5. Party Police
6. The Agency Group
7. Dives
8. Atop a Cake
9. Red Planet
10. Underneath Us (Vinyl Only Bonus Track)