It’ll be five years in September since we last got a full-length from Toronto’s Alvvays, which is kind of crazy – that’s the sort of layoff you expect from veteran artists who’ve settled into a slower pace of working rather than hungry young bands with a strong tailwind of acclaim and adulation behind them, but maybe pandemics turn that sort of thinking on its head. I don’t know.

But following a couple of shows in 2021, the band are slowly getting back into gear with some festival shows in the US this Spring and Summer, and from the set lists of those already done, they’re using the opportunity to share a brace of new songs. As such, it’s not unreasonable to think that those songs have already been recorded and will be part of a new record out later this year, but until there’s official word, that’s all just speculation.

So while we speculate, let’s enjoy the complete concert footage of their last hometown show from May 2019’s CBC Music Fest at Toronto’s Echo Beach. I wasn’t there – I actually haven’t seen them since August 2014 at The Horseshoe – but they sure looked and sounded great.