alexalone -- ALEXALONEWORLD: Review

alexalone -- ALEXALONEWORLD

[Polyvinyl]

Underground Austin rock outfit alexalone approaches with their long-awaited debut album ALEXALONEWORLD (via Polyvinyl). While alexalone may be a name unknown to the music press until now, the band’s lo-fi recordings have been a hidden gem in the rock community for the last five years.

While the band appearing on ALEXALONEWORLD is a complete 4-piece outfit, the project started as the humble mumbles of guitarist/vocalist Alex Peterson. On these original recordings, Peterson would perform all the instruments, mix them themself, and upload the songs to Bandcamp.

But with the new lineup comes a new coat of paint which no other release of theirs has had before. The rich production capabilities on this record allow Peterson and company to do justice to the expansive world-building ambitions they’ve teased on earlier records. The album cover, music videos, lyrics, and production are enveloping, and you can feel the band swallow you up in each song.

Take for instance the opener “Electric Sickness” which wastes no time bursting out of the gates into this smothering, charged rhythm. The riff on this song is persistent and unchanging, building this overwhelming sense of anticipation for whatever is coming next. Peterson’s deadpan vocals come in telling you to “hide your problems” while these distant but omnipresent strings grace the mix only further drawing the listener into this world.

The instrumentals of this album refuse to be categorized, often drawing from a wide range of rock-based genres like post-rock, shoegaze, and sludge metal. While a lowkey song like “Let It Go” will paint a mix of glittery dream pop guitars, another like “Unpacking My Feelings” will suddenly break into a throttling doom metal jam in its second half--and a song like “Where in the World” will do both at the same time.

The most compelling aspect of ALEXALONEWORLD is the rich instrumentals which wouldn’t be complete without the hypnotizing performances of the band. The rich tapestries of guitars and droll bass notes construct these invigorating beams of sound that fill your ears like the breezy acoustics of a seashore. Also, the hypnotic drum performances from Sam Jordan utilize the repetitive tendencies of 70s German psych rock to keep the listener on their toes.

But while the instrumentals of ALEXALONEWORLD are uncanny, the vocals leave more to be desired. Peterson’s straight-faced muttering on songs like the aforementioned “Where in the World” lack the sense of other-worldly-ness that the instrumentals so effectively promote. I guess you could make the case that the vocals are meant to sound like the meditations of Peterson in their own mind--nevertheless, the vocals come off as amateurish and don’t bring the gravitas that a band like alexalone needs to meet its energy.

The second half of ALEXALONEWORLD is populated with these multifaceted epics that do the heavy lifting of worldbuilding on the record. “Black Rainbow”' plays its 7-minute between tense muted guitar strums and uncompromising sonic explosions reminiscent of the 90s post-rock dynamics of Slint. “Ruins” displays alexalone’s greatest characteristics, between its languishing guitar parts, wild guitar solo, and my favorite vocal performance on the record. The album bookends with “Eavesdropper”, a riveting jam sesh that sees the band turning the production tricks up to 11 and constructing a fantastic groove whose only fault is ending too early.

alexalone’s debut to Polyvinyl ALEXALONEWORLD shows them as a innovative band with kinks in their sound, but as a force to be reckoned with nevertheless.

7.1/10.