Canadian indie rock favorites and certified Grammy nominees (!) Alvvays rocked up to NPR to perform a set of buzzing, beatific tunes for the latest episode of Tiny Desk.
The band performed four tracks, all of which appeared on their excellent 2022 album, Blue Rev. The set opened with standout cut, “Belinda Says” — with its cheeky nod to Belinda Carlisle’s 1987 classic, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” — followed by renditions of “Pressed,” “Very Online Guy,” and “Tile by Tile.”
Blue Rev celebrated its one-year anniversary in October, and to mark the occasion, Alvvays released an extremely limited-edition reissue pressing on vinyl that was actually filled with the sugary alcoholic beverage the LP is named after (unsurprisingly, the 50 copies quickly sold out).
Lead singer Molly Rankin told Rolling Stone it’s been years since she’s had a sip of Blue Rev herself, admitting, “I feel kind of bad, because every time people ask me what it tastes like, I say it’s disgusting. I don’t know how to reconcile that. It is a cultural hallmark of my youth, so whether it’s gross or not, it remains vivid and a cornerstone.”
Rankin also discussed Alvvays’ surprising, but certainly deserved Grammy nomination, Best Alternative Music Performance for “Belinda Says.”
“It’s such a rare thing,” Rankin said of the nod. “Just cracking into that world without a big muscular infrastructure …it is a really tough arena to get your foot into the door. So I think it’s just neat that we’ve done it. And everyone in the band has played on the record, so we all feel like we’re part of this thing that we made together. Normally it’s just a bunch of people that happened to be available on that specific day or something, in the way that we would throw albums together in the past. This is a unique unit for us, and a nice little celebration.”
Alvvays have a handful of tour dates left this year, after which they’ll take a break from the road until next spring. A North American run will kick off April 18 in Cleveland, with dates scheduled through May 17 in Tucson. A tour of the U.K. and Europe will follow in the summer.