Album Review: Alexandra Savior - 'The Archer'
‘The Archer’ is Alexandra Savior’s second LP - a stylistic, gritty ten track tale drenched in heartbreak and underpinned by a newfound independence.
This Portland-born singer-songwriter has previously worked with Alex Turner and The Last Shadow Puppets (who she also supported on their tour in America). With ‘The Archer’, Savior says, “I felt like I needed to establish my own voice and show my independence again”.
‘The Archer’ opens with ‘Soft Currents’ - a romantic piano led track paired with Savior’s quintessentially delicate, whirly vocals. ‘Saving Grace’ takes a rockier turn with a plucky guitar riff and heavy bass line opening the song and Savior’s vocals sounding ever more eerie. ‘Crying All The Time’ was the first single written and released after her 2017 debut album, Belladonna of Sadness, which Savior co-wrote with Alex Turner. Written on New Years Eve, this brooding ballad is full of heartbreak and has a vintage noir feel. Lyrics such as ‘I know I’ll be gone soon/ But just for him, I will prevail’ and ‘He doesn’t like it when I cry/ (cry, cry, cry)/ And now he’s gone, so I’m crying all the time’ show Savior’s playful melancholic lyricism.
The piano and ghostly backing vocals in ‘Howl’ make you feel like you are in a haunted house at a fairground. Savior sings, ‘Handsome dictator of my crimes/ I can’t tell if they’re yours/ I can’t tell if they’re mine’, unravelling her manipulative relationship.
“I tried to project some sort of strength; I wrote during a time when I was a young woman growing into my identity and developing my confidence, and I hope that comes through”.
The pre-singles (‘Saving Grace’, ‘Crying All The Time’, ‘Howl’, ‘The Archer’) are stand out songs on the album but the horns in ‘Send Her Back’ and ‘But You’ are a welcomed addition to the album’s sound. The album concludes with the title track ‘The Archer’, ending with the lyrics ‘I licked the blood from your lips’. This harks back to the ‘sweet lips like pink lemonade’ line, that Savior referred to in ‘Can’t Help Myself’, indicting the eventual turn in her relationship.
Savior stays true to her retro and dreamy sound first crafted in ‘Belladonna of Sadness’ but shows more creative independence in ‘The Archer’. The array of sounds used to create songs full of pensive sadness, along with the aesthetic of the pre-single music videos and artwork covers, all distinctively point to the artistry of Alexandra Savior.
Words by Lizzie Connor
‘The Archer’ out 10 January 2020 on 30th Century Records