Alexandra Leaving
The Grace, London
December 5th 2025

Alexandra Leaving’s three-minute, radio-friendly pop songs mask some sharp societal observations. It’s a winning package, as Steve Morgan discovers.

It’s an unpromising, pissing down ‘leaves on the line’ kind of north London night outside The Grace. Next door at The Garage, The Wurzels – yes, The Wurzels – are in town.
While there is no sane Venn Diagram in which Alexandra Leaving and the West Countrymen could co-exist, the power-pop quartet’s own combine harvesting is equally bounteous. Tonight’s set may be short, seven songs crammed into a breathless 25 minutes as the filling in a three-band sandwich, but it’s a tasty morsel. It is also as lean as a butcher’s dog: this is a band that has moved on significantly since your reviewer first caught them a year ago, in tone, tautness and, crucially, stage presence.

Theirs is a highly deceptive sound, too, one that leaves a bit on you. Take opening salvo My Sunshine. The title feels somewhat out of kilter on such a drab, wintry night, but it’s entirely appropriate.

Like much of the band’s work, it comes on sugary sweet and FM-friendly, with a big, expansive chorus, but beneath that accessible, rocky front lurk depths far deeper and darker. Lyrically it’s the kind of window-on-the-soul, relatable confessional which has served Sam Fender so well: “my sister packing boxes, then the diagnoses, through it all, we remember every word,” giving way to a chorus that suggests there are still diamonds in the rough: “you were always my sunshine, you were always my radio, darling, radio, darling”. Next up, it’s These Scars from the band’s debut 2024 EP; a state-of-the-heart number delivered with two fingers raised in defiance. “This song is for anyone who’s ever been in a toxic relationship and got out of it,” opines singer Alexandra Dodd – the Alexandra Leaving name is borrowed from a Leonard Cohen number. Over scuzzy guitars, thudding bass and drums, our protagonist emerges from the darkness, bloody but unbowed. It’s a great vehicle to show off the depth and resonance of Dodd’s voice, which shifts powerfully through the gears.

They’re fun to watch, too. On the perky pop of Gone Girl 2.0, over a sweet, catchy melody, Dodd discards the guitar to chronicle the struggles of dealing with others’ expectations, opting to speak, not sing. “If I sacrificed my vision in the name of tradition, would you shower me with petals and call off the petition for the girl that you want, not the one that I am, assign me to the fate of your perfect plan,” she intones. Flailing her arms like a dervish, the song is over in two minutes. Without a break, the band dives headlong into The Wall, where a frenzied, fuzzy riff and staccato vocal hold the iniquities of the music industry up to the light, yielding to a monster chorus as catchy as anything out there. Here, there are fine guitar pyrotechnics from Morgan Rickman, with punchy backing from Jack-in-the-box Miles Hobbs on bass and the excellent Angus McIntyre on drums.

It’s been a slow burn for the band these past 18 months, the inevitable career snakes and ladders: a session and the odd 6 Music play here, a sniff of a deal there, always the test of the inner resolve to keep that dream alive while chasing a spike in streams and social-media followers. But there’s something here alright. Hobbs sports a Wolf Alice T-shirt – no mammoth leap of the imagination is required to picture these songs escaping the boxy confines of The Grace for bigger, grander stages, not least for the closing two numbers.

The penultimate offering, Pretty Suspicious, has another corking riff, a slow burner that explodes into life as Dodd’s voice soars high above it, before the set’s show-stopping moment, Conversation Killer, which builds to a chorus so dreamily catchy that had someone told you it was a lost Blondie outtake from Parallel Lines, you wouldn’t query it. Dodd smiles and shrugs as she kicks against the pricks once more: “How slight is the return? Your name a match I’m going to burn,” she spits. And with that, they’re gone.

In a just world, you’ll be hearing a lot more about them. Short, sweet and catchy these songs may be – nothing here lasts much more than three minutes – but their gritty centres are as tough as Dodd’s boots, and her band delivers them with contagious fighting spirit. You should catch these fists.

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You can find Alexandra Leaving online here: Website | Instagram | Facebook.

All words by Steve Morgan. Steve can be found here on Bluesky

Photos by Robyn Skinner – see her work here: Instagram