Empty Drinks/Empty Hearts

Alexa Dark encapsulates the clearly articulated crunchy guitar-filled 1990s rock sound on her debut, the angsty pop EP Empty Drinks/Empty Hearts. And like many songs from that wheelhouse, these mostly depict love affairs gone wrong. “Blur” plays out the end of a relationship that’s reduced to a waste of time, with a chorus delivery that sounds slightly similar to Lana Del Rey. The title track has a similar sentiment, the age-old predicament of partying late into the night with a lonely realization at the end of it. Rather than wallow, the instrumentation brings a celebratory attitude, a kind of sonic gathering place for anyone who might be dealing with the same kind of sorrow. None of these songs stand out as heavy hitters, maybe because they’re missing a little bit of that grit that made those ’90s alt-rock songs so satisfying.