Alexa Dark channels all of the pissed off angst that women brought to mainstream rock music in the late 90’s and early aughts. On her new album, Empty Drinks/Empty Hearts, she marries silky smooth vocals and catchy guitar melodies to lyrics that bring to life that darker parts of a relationship– the tail end as things start to spiral and fizzle out. It’s a bitter, dark ride throughout the album’s five songs, but damn does it feel good to listen and sing along to.
Album opener “Nothing More” kicks things off with a resounding chorus of “I don’t want live/Nothing of the sort/I just want you and me and really nothing more” before throwing us into the heartbreaking response to that lyric, “You gave me tears and fears and nothing more.” The album is bound to pull comparisons to acts like Liz Phair and Alanis Morisette, and yeah, I get it. There’s something about the way those acts, and now Alexa Dark, are able to take these bitter and jaded-on-love lyrics and attach them to these high flying and instantly memorable choruses.
When asked about the record, Alexa said: “Empty Drinks/Empty Hearts is a collection of songs cultivated in the brief moment when the party is over, when the sobriety comes just before the morning does. The songs were written in bedrooms, planes, between drinks outside East London clubs during early morning hours and on the concrete of various cities, intertwining cultural and personal narratives.”
She continues, “The EP was produced by Angelo “Doc” Velasquez (The Weeknd’s Trilogy, The Fray, Christina Perry) and mixed by Patrick Kelly, using live instrumentation to translate what my band and I had created on London stages into the record.”
You can stream Empty Drink/Empty Hearts in full below.
Empty Drinks/Empty Hearts is available this Fall. Pick up your copy here.
