The Hotel Alexis – The Shining Example is Lying on the Floor

The Hotel Alexis
The Shining Example is Lying on the Floor

Sidney Alexis, the prime mover behind the New Hampshire band The Hotel Alexis, knows how to craft a sad song. On his band’s debut album, The Shining Example is Lying on the Floor, you’ll hear 12 songs of his melancholy fragility: quiet, moody, downcast, and evocative. I guess the slide guitar can really bring out those qualities in a song when it’s used effectively.

Like Mark Eitzel or Mark Kozelek or any other wordsmith with a heavy heart and a guitar, Mr. Alexis writes and delivers songs as though he were your friend coming to you with his problems. He’s got something on his mind, weighing him down, and he wants you to hear him out and empathize. You oblige, and you feel richer for having done so.

The music on Shining Example hardly raises its volume above a whisper. As an accompaniment to these 12 tales, it works well because it sets the mood but doesn’t clutter the delivery of the narratives. Lyrics like “I just wanna say / I can see through you now / I just wanna say / O.K.” (from the song “O.K.”) don’t need a lot of dressing up, and they derive some of their power from the intimate, uncluttered delivery. The Hotel Alexis could definitely pack a coffee house.

One of the pitfalls of this kind of music can be a singer who tries to hard; thankfully, Alexis doesn’t ever become mawkish or whiney, never needing to over-emote to convey his points. Another would be a band that tries too hard, which thankfully the musicians on Shining Example never do. The simplicity of the album belies the sometimes-baroque song titles: “My August Name,” “I Will Arrange for You to Fall,” and “Queens and the Soft King” (hmmm… some of these remind me of early Felt titles). “I Will Arrange for You to Fall” – one of two short instrumental breaks – segues into the nine-minute “Queens,” itself divided by silence into two songs. The latter half of “Queens” sounds like a really good Iron & Wine imitation.

This kind of record encourages a close listen. You’ll pick up subtly shifting guitar melodies and just-right slide-guitar accents, a little soft tremolo (“Superman and Vitamins”), some acoustic picking, and gentle mellotron. It’s an audio pillow upon which to rest your head while you let an old friend tell you about the state of his world. “I live my life / So quietly now / I dreamed you were a baby / I dreamed of you / Something so permanent lately / Has died in you” captures much of the Alexis approach. Quiet, yes, with a sense of loss and hope: that pretty much sums it all up.