Alvvays: Antisocialites [ROYAL MOUNTAIN RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This LP comes from Royal Mountain Records, the Toronto label that has backed Alvvays from the start. Antisocialites won the Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize.

About the album

Molly Rankin grew up in Mabou, Nova Scotia, the daughter of fiddler John Morris Rankin of The Rankin Family, writing songs with her neighbour Kerri MacLellan. Years later the two of them, guitarist Alec O'Hanley and the rest of Alvvays were in Toronto, road-testing a second album at shows long before anyone had heard a recording. The band had toured hard behind their 2014 debut, from Glastonbury to Coachella.

Fans knew "Your Type" as the band's live opener, and "Saved By A Waif" began life as a song called New Haircut. O'Hanley produced with John Congleton, keeping the jangle bright and the melodies front and centre. "In Undertow" opens on a shimmer, "Dreams Tonite" earned a SOCAN Songwriting Prize nomination, "Plimsoll Punks" kicks up the pace, and "Lollipop (Ode To Jim)" and "Not My Baby" show how much sharper the writing had become.

It made Alvvays one of the country's most loved indie bands, and their Toronto shows keep selling out. The name is spelled with two Vs because another band already had Always, and we have long since stopped correcting people at the till.

Also at Kops: more Alvvays on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Royal Mountain Records (cat# RMR-064C), the 2017 album.