REVIEW: XOLEX — Ain’t Buyin’ It (SINGLE)

Peeking out from behind a cloud of silence, we find the opening bars of XOLEX’s brooding new single “Ain’t Buyin’ It” ready and waiting to drag us under with her weighty signature harmony. XOLEX has a voice that quickly takes center stage here, and although her delivery is supple and precise, it’s the tonal presence of her vocal that tends to steal away the lion’s share of our affections in this number. “Ain’t Buyin’ It,” from a compositional perspective, is a fairly retro piece of material.

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It aesthetically borrows a lot of its cosmetics from classic country music, but a beat that’s been skewed with an Americana influence prevents any comparisons to the throwback content a lot of this artist’s contemporaries have been experimenting with in recent times. Like a tide, rising and falling with a brilliant unpredictability, it’s initially rather difficult to tell when the volume swells are going to hit us in “Ain’t Buyin’ It,” but I would stop well short of describing any part of the arrangement as being particularly abrasive — especially in comparison to most of the indie country starting to trend well on the left side of the dial in 2023.

This is an incredible balance of old-school framework and modern artistic liberality, and although it’s got a couple of rough edges in its production quality, there’s nothing about “Ain’t Buyin’ It” that would qualify as being unfocused or inaccessible for a critic like myself. It’s one heck of a strong release, but for this vocalist, I have a feeling we should expect a high-level potency from her upcoming output.

“Ain’t Buyin’ It” concludes as subtly as it comes creeping out of the shadows, and despite its moderate running time, it doesn’t feel lacking in any sort of creative substance at all whatsoever. XOLEX is a new face in the game, and while she’s still got a lot to prove if she’s going to join the ranks of an increasingly pressurized mainstream market, she’s doing a fine job of establishing herself and the type of artistry she wants to be known for in this track.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing and hearing what she does with this sound in the future, but for now, I would recommend that country fans — as well as those simply looking for some smart new music — everywhere give this a thorough listen.

Colin Jordan