Alexandra Riorden
Feel at Home (2025)
A sense of optimism adorns the atmosphere of Alexandra Riorden’s second album, Feel at Home. Spanning a fruitful three-plus year period guided by inner discovery and spiritual reconciliation, Riorden’s new record chronicles the journey of an inevitable return to center that can be traced across a myriad of places.
Originally from San Francisco, words and performance have long formed the core of Riorden’s expression. A stint in Los Angeles yielded her first two releases: Weirdflower, a charming EP of lofi guitar pop, and Angel City Radio, an ambitious debut full-length rampant with personality and a fusion of styles ranging from glam to grunge.
In the aftermath of those projects, Riorden found herself on the move and in search of refuge, grappling with past traumas. She eventually settled in Santa Barbara, a change in scenery that signified a shift not only in her surroundings, but in her relationship with the types of songs taking shape inside her.
“Moving to Santa Barbara stripped back so much of the excess from my life,” she says. “I'm less inundated by things. A lot of my time here is spent alone and in nature, and I feel like you can really hear that on this album.”
If Angel City Radio was a big city rock record, Feel at Home is its reflective counterpart, an introspective and quietly anthemic collection of folk-flavored pop songs that are sweet in sound and punk in essence. Produced in tandem with singer-songwriter / musician Omar Velasco (collaborator of Father John Misty, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and Jonathan Wilson), and featuring drumming from Justin Flint, its mood is predominantly gentle and restrained, its power revealed in big hooks and sharp yet simple lyricism that paints an honest portrait of an artist in bloom.
Album opener “Ocean” mixes the earthly with the ethereal, its danceable refrain instilling a sense of uplift that persists throughout the duration of the record (It isn’t always easy but it’s beautiful / Sometimes we all need help / Gets a little crazy but it’s magical / You have to understand it for yourself). When asked about the hopeful nature of her lyrics, Riorden offers a whimsical but telling response. “This album is basically me playing my journals on guitar,” she says.
The rest of the tracklist unfurls like a continual stream of prayer, slowly unfolding over carefully crafted layers of instrumentation that hold simplicity and space in the highest regard. Though noticeably darker in mood, the album’s second track, “It’s Ok, I Love You” reinforces motifs of self-assurance, with Riorden’s bewitching timbre and Gabe Noel’s (Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Phoebe Bridgers, Feist) stark string arrangements melding to form an enchanting slice of gothic Americana that brings to mind the cinematic sound of recent Weyes Blood records.
“Leaf in the Wind” and “Try to Live Again” keep the sentiment aflame, demonstrating a refined feel for melody that serves as a testament to the extensive stage time devoted to this particular group of songs. In the classic songwriter tradition, Riorden fleshed out a bulk of the tracks that would come to comprise her album in a wide variety of venues ranging from clubs to coffeehouses, often without the accompaniment of a band. Of the many environments in which they were performed, it was busking at the local farmer’s market on a weekly basis that proved the most formative.
“Playing at a venue brings out a certain crowd of people. When you play on the street, you have to work for it,” says Riorden, alluding to one of the prescient themes on Feel at Home – that of becoming comfortable in your own skin. “It's like a masterclass in how to create an inviting, warm ambiance and welcome people into your world.”
Between the handful of mid tempo ballads, intimate reveries emerge. Whether singing in praise of nature’s ephemeral beauty, as on the serene “Live Among the Flowers,” or cherishing the gift of genuine companionship on “My Friend,” the prevailing message is one rooted in love and tenderness. “A lot of the journey has been accepting who I truly am and what my songwriting truly is right now. It’s not what I always thought was cool, you know?” says Riorden. “I don't have to fit into this edgy, experimental city girl vibe. There’s really a softness to my music and that’s okay.
Some of the album’s most compelling tracks infuse that vulnerability with a yearning for spiritual transcendence. “Feel at Home” turns and twirls inside the calming embrace of internal peace, while “Over My Head” submits to the pull of roaring tides, relinquishing the strain of resisting life’s existential forces once and for all. Bolstered by a visceral guitar solo from Velasco, the latter marks an emotional highpoint for the record, Riorden’s closing verse – “Give it another day” – echoing on the breeze like a mantra descending from a sacred realm.
Feel at Home lives as a love letter to the human spirit and a doctrine that grants permission to seek out magic in the mundane. It also captures the sanguine side of a burgeoning songwriter, teaching us to regard change as an acquaintance rather than an adversary, and that the smallest acts of compassion are ultimately the very things that make us whole.