★★★★★
As much mileage as bands have gotten out of the C86 sonic template (from the warm combustibility of the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Honey" to the twee-by-numbers of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's debut album), the formula hasn't really shifted much over the years: lo-fi interpretations of Phil Spector's wall of sound, swaths of blown-out guitars playing well-worn pop chord progressions, occasional vocal harmonies employed almost solely to earn the inevitable '60s girl-group comparisons and...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2014-08-22
★★★★★
Alvvays may be just another annoying band name in the vein of Wavves, but it's the stand-out irritant on this straight-up, no-nonsense debut. While innovation is in short supply, the pop smarts from this Canadian five-piece are undeniable.
Cloying marriage proposal songs of the past get satisfyingly swept aside by the casual, hook-laden chorus of Marry Me Archie...
- www.beat.com.au
2014-08-18
★★★★★
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. City Hall. A secret room behind the mayor's office, accessible by pulling on a fake hardcover of Rush's Neil Peart's The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa hidden in the mayoral bookshelf. The hidden room is paneled exclusively in RICH, DARK OAK with LEATHER ACCENTS and PLUSH MAROON CARPETING. An enormous desk covered in GOLD LEAF takes up much of the space in the room. DRAKE, 27, a rapper, sits at the desk in an overstuffed chair with a big gold owl on top of it...
- cokemachineglow.com
2014-08-08
★★★★★
Tweet Adult Diversions Most Canadians know all about The Rankins. The Nova Scotians come from a family of 12 siblings and their folk family group is well-acclaimed. John Morris Rankin, a large piece of The Rankin Family group, died in an accident when his daughter Molly was only a pre-teen. Today, Molly is fronting her own group of indie rockers called Alvvays...
- www.mxdwn.com
2014-08-02
★★★★★
Fuzz pop is a genre of music that has been surging in popularity of late. It is the kind of aesthetic that brings to mind early evening strolls down some nameless boulevard in Southern California. In my experience, though, many of the bands that tackle this sound tend to lean a little too heavily on the "fuzz factor". This may be, in part, a kind of survival strategy as much as anything else...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-07-31
★★★★★
In John Green's The Fault In Our Stars, eye cancer patient Isaac expressed his love for his then-girlfriend Monica by incessantly exchanging the phrase "always," indicating their devotion to one another. It's a word that's often drenched in hyperbolized romance, one that simultaneously signifies yesteryear and hopes for tomorrow. It also makes something of a perfect name for Toronto-based band Alvvays (pronounced "always")...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2014-07-25
★★★★★
Fixing their gaze on awkward social moments and unrequited love ... Alvvays
Somewhere between Belle and Sebastian, the Vivian Girls and Real Estate, Canadian five-piece Alvvays fix their gaze on awkward social moments and unrequited love, while setting their tales to breezy, literate indie-rock. It's whimsical and at times meandering, but has enough to it that it doesn't fall into that most pointless of categories: twee...
- www.theguardian.com
2014-07-25
★★★★★
"Indie pop" is a fuzzy descriptive musical term, but however you define it, Alvvays are the real deal. The Canadian group is directly in the lineage of Orange Juice, the Go-Betweens and Teenage Fanclub -- starting with '60s soul, surf and girl-group pop, reconfiguring with bookish, modernist takes on being sad and in love, recorded on the cheap...
- www.wonderingsound.com
2014-07-25
★★★★★
Never mind their linguistically questionable band name, a play on consonants that should help ameliorate their SEO reach, Alvvays is but a presentational quirk that's as ambivalent as the music they're inspired to play. The fey nonchalance found in the Toronto quartet's debut effort taps into a vast compendium of reverb-soaked indie pop, one that covers a good portion of twee's thirty years without overly reading into every single detail...
- www.noripcord.com
2014-07-23