Valley, a Canadian alternative indie pop band from Toronto, has been on a musical journey for nearly a decade. Now, they’ve entered a new, vulnerable, and raw era with their latest album *Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden,* released on August 30. The band comprises of Rob Laska (lead vocalist), Alex Dimauro (bassist) and Karah James (drummer).

Since forming in 2016, Valley has amassed over 1.1 billion global streams, toured extensively across the world, and received a Juno Award nomination for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2020, followed by a nomination for Group of the Year in 2022.

This 12 track album captures a wide range of emotions — from pain to happiness to joy — that the band experienced during its creation. According to Karah James, this album marks a fresh start for the band and reflects a pivotal life moment: “it’s a pivotal point of being a kid and realizing you’re not a kid anymore, but also that we don’t feel like adults. This album is us trying to figure out why we are continuing to live in this grey zone, but also resisting losing our youthful spirit while dealing with adult problems. The idea of a garden themed album stemmed from the fact that a garden is similar to humans. You have your weeds, pests, flowers, vines and all these things that make up a persons life and when you take a step back, you see it’s a garden and it’s beautiful.”

The album represents life itself, capturing the moments that shape us into who we are. When we asked what colour best represents this album, Alex Dimauro describes it as yellow: “Yellow is bright and hopeful which represents sun and growth which summarizes the record.” Rob Laska adds, “Yellow is a colour that poses the idea of hesitation, but then you go for it, like when you are nearing a yellow stoplight you just go for it.

Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden is deeply relatable and emotional, not only to the listeners, but for the band as well. Rob reflects,“ This record is the first time as friends and a band where we had to process something together. We’ve been there for each other the last 10 years, but this was the first time we had to grieve together, but also be happy for our friend — just overall processing things together. Leaning into that, we learned a lot about each other and established a deeper understanding of what it feels like to hold each other in that space and process life changing in front of us.”

The release of Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden will be followed by a 33-stop tour starting on September 28. Valley is eager to share this new era with their fans.

We’re so excited about Valley’s new era and can’t wait to see what comes next for them.

Special thanks to Valley, Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, and º1824 for making this interview possible.

Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden is now available on all platforms so listen to it here.

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