Album Review: Lexia - Underground Sounds

Alexia "Lexia" Rodriguez, better known as the frontwoman of metalcore band Eyes Set To Kill, and nominee of sexiest woman in rock, has released her first debut solo album. It’s about as far away from the ESTK albums as you could possibly get, despite including acoustic versions of some of their songs. All screaming and guitars put aside, this actually isn’t a bad record.

Lets get one thing straight, if you’re here for something heavy, this is not the album for you. You’ll just need to listen to ‘Basements’ to understand what I mean. This track sounds more like something you’d expect from Katy Perry, not one of metal’s leading women. ‘Climbing Up The Walls’ features darker and more atmospheric synths, and suits this Radiohead cover brilliantly. The vocals are less poppy and the overall effect is quite haunting.

‘Still Here’ is quite simply, a beautiful song. It’s just a great vocalist with an acoustic guitar and a piano. Simple, but very effective. This carries on into ‘Memories’ minus the piano, but somehow it doesn’t make such a strong track. The lyrics aren’t as good, and on the whole the song is close to becoming boring. If you’d never heard the original, this version of ‘World Outside’ could easily be how it was meant to sound. It’s mellow, and the vocals sound far more powerful over just piano than crunching guitar. Despite having hints of the original song, I would not be surprised if this became people’s favourite version.

With slightly more pace, ’Reach’ makes a nice change from the slow melancholy from the last few songs. The guitar is overt, while the vocals are more subdued, but it works well and actually makes quite a catchy song. The final track ‘Waste’ is yet more acoustic guitar, and by this point it’s becoming a bit monotonous. It’s a good job the lyrics and vocals with a bit more depth than before can make up for it. The song picks up towards the end with the introduction of a violin, but still sounds very similar to the other tracks on the album.

This is one of those albums you’ll either love or hate. ‘Underground Sounds’ features unrelenting melodic vocals and guitar, which does build up a great atmosphere to start, but it really begins to grate after 11 tracks. There’s nothing to break up the songs, and really nothing to distinguish them either. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad album, but you might be better off alternating between a few of these songs, and a few of something heavier just to cleanse your palette. But then again, you may as well just listen to a Eyes Set To Kill album.

3/5

'Underground Sounds' by Lexia is available now on BreakSilence Records.

Lexia on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Blaise Ruston