Alvvays: “Tom Verlaine”

Cast back to the self-titled debut. It’s Alvvays by Alvvays. The dreampop band from Toronto with enough drive and thump in their breezy tracks to share a bill with house DJs in a pinch.

But the voice out front, and the contours of the songwriting, are all rock vernacular. Shades of Stone Roses, subtract the foregrounded bass, meets Beach House in our highlighted track “Tom Verlaine.”

Probably a song about a fleeting (and perhaps finally lost) love affair? Tom Verlaine is the symbolic hook they hang their hat on, though the French poet Paul Verlaine would have been an equally appropriate choice to fall under the general heading of “ephemeral, flighty, and basically untrustworthy romantic partner.”

Stream, share, buy to your heart’s content.

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