Alvvays

Mabou to Toronto

Molly Rankin grew up in Mabou, Nova Scotia, writing music with her neighbour Kerri MacLellan. Her father, John Morris Rankin, was a fiddler with the Celtic folk family collective the Rankin Family, who enjoyed international success in the 1990s. She met the guitarist Alec O'Hanley, a Charlottetown native, at a concert, and with his help released a solo EP, She, in 2010. The following year Rankin recruited MacLellan, O'Hanley, drummer Phil MacIsaac and bassist Brian Murphy. She picked the name for its shred of sentiment and nostalgia, and spelled it with two v's because a band called Always was already signed to Sony.

The group moved to Toronto and took support slots with Peter Bjorn and John and the Decemberists. In March 2013 they recorded their first album in Calgary at Yoko Eno, the studio of Chad VanGaalen, who produced it. Polyvinyl signed them on the strength of their South by Southwest shows and the response to the demo of Adult Diversion. Alvvays came out on 22 July 2014 and went to number one on the US college charts on 5 August. Its lead single, Archie, Marry Me, became the breakthrough. The album was shortlisted for the 2015 Polaris Music Prize, and the band played Glastonbury in 2015 and Coachella in 2016.

Antisocialites

MacIsaac left the band in 2016 for a career in graphic design, and Sheridan Riley took over on drums. For Antisocialites, released on 8 September 2017, O'Hanley produced with John Congleton. Pitchfork's Marc Hogan wrote that the record sharpened the band's focus without losing sight of themselves, and that its production was bright and clear where the debut had been musty. The synth-led single Dreams Tonite had been a live staple since early 2016. Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub played glockenspiel and sang on the record. It won the 2018 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year and was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize.

Blue Rev

Between 2019 and 2022 the band stayed largely out of public view, and Murphy left in 2021. The third album was started almost as soon as the second was out, then slowed by a theft of Rankin's demo recorder, a basement flood that threatened the band's gear, and pandemic border closures that kept the members apart. In October 2021 they went into the studio with the producer Shawn Everett, who had them play the whole record front to back twice on the second day. Abbey Blackwell had joined on bass, and the band finished the album around 8 a.m. on the day of the vinyl pressing plant's deadline.

Pharmacist came out in July 2022 and Blue Rev on 7 October. Pitchfork's Jeremy D. Larson wrote that Alvvays had made a record finally large enough to contain the band's splendor. It reached 61 on the Billboard 200, 2 on the UK independent chart, and won the 2023 Juno for Alternative Album of the Year, with a Polaris shortlist. Easy on Your Own? and Belinda Says were among its singles, and the latter earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Since

Blackwell left in 2024, and Lukas Cheung toured on bass. Alvvays also played an NPR Tiny Desk concert. Critics have kept returning to Rankin's writing: Pitchfork wrote that her literary flair has never been pretentious, only wise. Rankin says she channels her feelings into little universes and invented scenarios, and has never written directly about her interactions with people. The press and the band itself call the music jangle pop, though Rankin says the emphasis is on strong melodies rather than on a genre. Her influences include the Magnetic Fields, Teenage Fanclub, Dolly Mixture and the Smiths, and she has said that being immersed in Celtic music from childhood shapes the way she sings and writes melodies. All three albums have been shortlisted for the Polaris Prize, and two have won the Juno for Alternative Album of the Year.