“The Archer” Hits Spotify’s Streaming Bullseye
New indie album announces fresh Americana sound
Singer Alexandria Savior brings her Portland, OR sensibilities to her alternative, pop-rock songwriting.
She credits her eclectic musical style to her upbringing, where her father encouraged her to listen to all genres of music, and her love of music started at age 14, when she began listening to artists like Amy Winehouse and Otis Redding.
On Jan. 10, Savior released her latest studio album “The Archer,” making the indie world quake with her original, vintage-American sound.
She first garnered attention in 2012 when fellow musician Courtney Love commented on her cover of Angus Stone’s “Big Jet Plane,” saying “This girl is gonna be huge!”
Given Savior's nearly 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Love was not wrong. While her music hasn’t hit the radio, Savior is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
“Girlie,” the most popular song from her first studio album “Belladonna of Sadness,” has over 3.2 million streams on Spotify, and her latest tracks are racking in hundreds of thousands of listens as well.
Not to mention, in 2017, she collaborated with Alex Turner, the acclaimed lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys, who she credits with helping her refine her sound.
Savior’s sound and style are reminiscent of Lana Del Rey, only with a Western-psychedelic twist. While there are moments on the album where the bar is set so incredibly high and you feel like dancing crazily in the desert in a black lace dress, there are moments where the vocals are monotone to a fault, the guitar is too simple or the music is plain dull and you might be tempted to turn on the latest Ariana Grande.
Her latest album is entirely hers; she wrote every song, directed every music video and even designed the album artwork. With 10 songs, Savior encapsulates the melancholy of heartbreak amidst a process of introspection. Each track evokes a different emotion.
The album’s standout track, “Crying All the Time,” sets the tone for the whole album. Its grainy vocals are juxtaposed by first-rate, luxurious production. It makes her listeners understand that amidst the surface-level beauty of life, people can still hurt.
Metaphors aside, Savior’s voice and musical style reveal her as the cool, moody indie star we all secretly want to be.
Her lyrics, beautiful yet foreboding, tell the story of lost love and a crippling self-awareness of her own short-comings and character flaws.
In “Saving Grace,” she sings, “Saving grace / Come here to petrify me / She’s not an angel, my dear / She is a beast.” Savior knows she is far from perfect, yet she simultaneously recognizes that these imperfections constitute the basis of her musical career and style and are ultimately things for which she should learn to love.
In an interview with Billboard, Savior expressed that she was in a toxic relationship, which inspired many of the themes of heartbreak in the album.
Additionally, she claims that upon entering the music industry, because of her young age and presumed naiveté, none of the more experienced music producers with whom she worked truly saw her for who she was.
In a way, “The Archer” is a statement about reclaiming who you are and channeling feelings of rejection into expressing your true self.
Savior sings of blood and tears over a reverb-drenched guitar and sophisticatedly handles dark themes that are seemingly beyond her 24 years. She describes her own music as filled with “feminist angst with a horror film feel.”
The album has its highs and lows, but despite its failings it is a soft and captivating work of musical art. Savior enchants us with her star quality and her ability to convey cavernous, somber emotions in an album that is simultaneously underpinned by a sense of newfound independence.
“The Archer” is definitely a safe space for anyone who is going through a period of beautiful yet painful transformation.