How Alvvays harnessed the “glorious, devastating” power of truly dimed guitar amps, slacker tunings and Tom Verlaine on new album Blue Rev

“Stubborn” is likely not the first word one thinks of when listening to Blue Rev, the dreamy new album from Toronto indie rockers Alvvays. But there is one thing the group insists on stubbornly.

“We’re really stubborn about the volume of the guitars,” says singer/guitarist Molly Rankin. “I just want them to be loud and menacing.”

From the very beginning, Alvvays’ songs have featured sharp, studied guitar work, often poking out from beneath layers of tape saturation and synth wash. The band’s second album, Antisocialites, leaned heavily on synths for its hypnagogic sound, but on Blue Rev the band puts the guitar front and center, pushing the sonic envelope just about as far as it will go. 

Though the band cite ’80s twee and college rock as their primary influences, to find the right guitar tone, they’d often use a simple, classic technique: turning up the amp all the way. “Sometimes the best tone is just a truly dimed amp,” says guitarist Alec O’Hanley.

O’Hanley’s guitar positively bursts forth on opener Pharmacist, cutting through the hazy mix like a familiar face in a dream. His tone on the song, particularly its explosive final lead, came about through cranking a tiny 9V Supro amplifier.

“It’s like the most glorious, devastating-sounding thing,” Rankin says. “I could listen to it for the rest of my life.”

On Blue Rev, O’Hanley and Rankin also experimented with alternate tunings for the first time, heightening the group’s already distinct guitar-jangle.

“Easy on Your Own, in my mind, had some heavy Malkmus energy,” O’Hanley says, referencing Pavement guitarist/singer Stephen Malkmus. “So I looked up the tuning for Silence Kid, put it in slacker tuning, and that sort of unlocked the song for me.”

Elsewhere, the band dedicate a song to one of the few true gods of indie rock guitar, the late Tom Verlaine of Television. Like Rankin, Verlaine famously played a Fender Duo-Sonic. Appropriately, he also once titled a song Always.

“Me, Kerri and Al were all trying to figure out what to call that song,” Rankin says. “It just felt kind of like a bold choice. Maybe we were just in a bold mood.”

• Blue Rev is out now on Polyvinyl.