Review: Lexi Jones -- Xandri

It's more than worth a few listens and then some.

It is almost impossible to review an album by the daughter of a musical icon without mentioning said musical icon's real name. I say "almost" because Lexi Jones is not her father and has no intention of living in his shadow. Had she released it under the name Lexi Bowie, it might have been a different story.

But Lexi Jones' album Xandri, which is Greek for "defender of mankind," was released in such an understated way it suggests she'd rather let the album be discovered on its own merit rather than cash in on her legacy. You might not even have known it came out on April 4th.

She wrote and produced it herself. It has a homemade feel to it in a way, and the songs shift from genre to genre. However, this feels less like a Protean move and more a product of Gen Z, who listens to anything and everything and doesn't differentiate between "genres" the way other generations do.

I can't help but compare her to Perla Vee, who is also Gen Z and shifts from bedroom whisper pop to aggressive industrial with ease. Not only when it comes to listening to music but also making and producing music, too. I love that there's no distinction. Or as Primal Scream sampled in "Come Together":

Today on this program, you will hear gospel and rhythm and blues and jazz. All those are just labels. We know that music is music.

Lexi’s opener "Along The Road" is definitely one of the best album openers recent memory. "Cracks of Mercy" has a guitar that would have sounded at home on an acoustic Nirvana album. Just when you think you've pinned the vibe down, she shifts to an Appalachian blues number like "Standing Alone," and follows it up with synth-drenched "The Edge," and "The Passage Unseen," which has all the drama of Kate Bush for Generation TikTok.

Her lyrics are direct but never trite, and there's a sense of moving on from mourning or sadness and continuing to learn from life. Take the lyrics to "Through All the Time":

Pick up the pieces of the past. Don't throw it all away; it was once all we had. Keep on keeping on, but the future won't be long. We'll make mistakes, but we'll never be wrong.

Don't be afraid. Everyone's gotta change; there's no need to look the other way. We will carry on to be the better side of who we are, no matter how far away.

The "we" might be referring to someone, but it could also just be the royal "we," and the singer is singing to herself, which is how I'm interpreting it.

Lexi's sense of melody is intuitive, and she's unafraid to go big when a lot of singers would have kept it smaller. Also, I can't say enough about her piano playing. There's something delightfully off-kilter about it. She is also adept at mixing minor note sadness with positive pathos and her voice is excellent.

I assume it was a deliberate choice to self-produce, and I'm not knocking her choice to do that, but I do think if someone had done a different mix, the songs would have been even stronger than they are.

There are so many good songs on here. I hope this isn’t a one off.

Stand-out tracks: “Along the road,” “Cracks of me,” “Moral compass,” “Standing alone,” “Through all the time,” “Moving on.”