In the middle of Goliath, I'm On Your Side comes a moment that colors the entire record-- except it's not so much one moment as a handful of them that stretch over 18 minutes. "Hummingbird/Indian Dog" consists of soft guitar, loops, and drones that shimmer and rise to the sky, a mostly-wordless dreamspace made of the gentlest psychedelia.
Once you hear it, it stays with you every time you play the record-- in the sturdier alt-country of "The Devil Knows My Handle", or the fragile ballads like "Suddenly, It's You & Me" where every instrument and every timbre in Syd Alexis' voice reveal cracks. This is one of those indie albums, a late-at-night, ostensibly vulnerable singer-songwriter thing where the auteur's friends step in to flesh out those simple arrangements with all the right touches-- a Mellotron here, pedal steel there. The rhythm section of Kimberlee Torres and Gregg Porter, Nathan Groth on guitar and vibes, and guests like Say Zuzu's Jon Nolan provide a fragile backdrop-- like the melody of "Silver Waves Crash Through the Canyons" that takes off on paper-maché wings, or opener "Sad, Sad Army", where Alexis' vocals open in a night-shift croak. But this isn't an album that coasts on its vibe. The dreaminess sometimes takes its toll: for some this will be a soft listen, maybe softer than the songs call for. The mellifluous synths of "I Will Arrange For You To Fall II" cradle you maternally, and a lullaby tone creeps in repeatedly. But the sublime state they achieve makes up for it. Two shorter instrumentals-- the brief "Thicket" and "Oh, The Loneliness"-- feed the ambiance of "Hummingbird/Indian Dog", and together they give Alexis and gang a chance to set on tape the space rock field trips of their live shows. The songs are strong on their own, but these excursions give Hotel Alexis a chance to disappear into a dream for a while, and find out where it leads.
