Alex Vile‘s music sounds heavily influenced by early 90s alt-rock, but they’re doing something fresh and new with it. They’ve been putting out singles for a couple of years – ten singles in total, enough for a record — and for some reason haven’t collected them on an LP or EP.

Here’s their latest single “Lucky Number”, which came up on the recommendation engine the other day and hooked me immediately:

Alex Vile is from the Seattle area, and now and then it would be easy to think that they’re from the Seattle area of, like, 1994. A few of their songs capture that sound extremely well, in a modern and distinct way. The single “Stainless” from last fall is one of those:

Lead singer Alexandra Vilenius has such a unique voice – her vocal on “Kobayashi” has so much character, with a conversational tone that turns sarcastic and cynical as the song goes on. It’s less than 2 minutes but it’s a journey:

I went looking for some live recordings of them, and there are lots on YouTube. This is my favourite one, from last October. They sound great and the camera operator gets really into the heavier parts, which will give you vertigo if you go full screen:

Here’s a conspiracy theory. Here’s the song “I Don’t Know You”. When I first heard it, the guitar and vocal in the quiet parts sound a little like a less-proggy Pool Kids track:

Then: Has anyone seen Pool Kids and Alex Vile in the same room? Each of these band members has a Bizarro-version in the other band. Hmmm.

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