Alvvays Fixing Limited-Edition Vinyl “Mess” Alongside Polyvinyl │ Exclaim!

Since the release of their stellar third album Blue Rev in 2022, Alvvays and their label, Polyvinyl, have been all shook up with pressing special-edition vinyl copies of the band’s catalogue. Fans who bought some of these limited pressings from a company called Bandbox in October 2023 apparently still haven’t received their orders, which Alvvays have now addressed in an email to customers that has been shared on Reddit.

“In October 2023 Bandbox solicited and took orders for exclusive pressings of both Blue Rev and Antisocialites. Bandbox was supposed to manufacture and send out both records to our fans,” the band wrote. “Neither we nor our label Polyvinyl were ever paid for these orders. Since then Bandbox has gone out of business and was sold to a new company, Vinylbox.”

They continued, “Polyvinyl has spent the past year trying to get Vinylbox to fulfill the orders Bandbox took, but they have been uncooperative every step of the way: they never made the records that they accepted orders for, they won’t refund orders and they will not share the list of customers with us. As a result, we are now fixing this mess alongside Polyvinyl.”

Fans who ordered copies have been prompted to fill out a form with a screenshot of their Bandbox receipts by April 20, with the promise of Polyvinyl shipping out the records they paid for by April 25.

“Bandbox had not completed the Alvvays zine that was planned to accompany the vinyl before they filed for bankruptcy, so the zine will unfortunately not be included with your order,” Alvvays added, going on to thank people for their patience. Kudos to them and the label for making sure these fans didn’t get screwed.

I probably don’t need to cite all of the vinyl manufacturing shortages/delays that have plagued the industry over the past few years, but this also reminds me of that merch company that abruptly shut down in 2023, affecting the online stores for artists like Mitski, Carly Rae Jepsen and Father John Misty.