Search - Hotel Alexis :: Goliath, I'm On Your Side

Goliath, I'm On Your Side , the second album by The Hotel Alexis, shows the band poised to make an impact in the landscape of American song. "Goliath" marks a significant step forward for The Hotel Alexis, and especially for singer/songwriter Sidney Alexis. Taking the Americana and folk influences from the first album, "Goliath" expands the distinctive songs into more experimental and psych influenced territory. Written primarily by Alexis during a stay at an ex-hippy commune in southern Spain and recorded in locations all over the US, the album's tracks are reminiscent of Sparklehorse trading songs on the porch with Richard Buckner while a Velvet Underground-era Lou Reed looks on with an approving nod. Emerging in the spring of 2005 from sleepy Portsmouth, NH, the debut album The Shining Example Is Lying On The Floor became an unexpected critical favorite despite the almost total lack of PR or touring exposure. The hushed, intimate atmosphere created by the lush instrumentation and highly personal songwriting led Dusted Magazine to call the record " the most pleasant surprise of the year", going on to praise "never have I been so captivated". The influential Aquarius Records of San Francisco named it album of the week, stating that "this record is just so completely beautiful and utterly heartbreaking it s a little hard to know how to describe it in a way that does it justice". Soon after the release of The Shining Example... Alexis and the band began pushing at the boundaries of the songs during their live sets, resulting in experiments with texture and noise the results of which remained with them during the recording sessions for the new album. "Goliath" still features the pedal steel and vibraphone tones of the first record, but these are placed inside longer, droning instrumental passages that would sound equally at home on an Oneida record, and fractured folk-rock epics that could be paired wi