The Voice contestant Alex Whalen leaves the competition for 'personal reasons'

Blake Shelton's final Battle on The Voice was a bit underwhelming — but it's not the cowboy's fault; it's just how it is when a head-to-head winds up being a solo act. That's exactly what happens when host Carson Daly arrives to announce that Team Blake artist Alex Whalen has left the competition ahead of his Battle Round performance against Neil Salsich.

You may remember Alex Whalen from the Blinds as the London-born country-rocker who won Blake over with his rendition of Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Or, you may remember him as the guy with the spectacular beard. We don't get any real details as to why Whalen has decided to leave, beyond "personal reasons," and the show leaves it at that.

But the show must go on, as they say, and so Carson introduces Neil Salsich, who will still be able to perform the Battles song he's been rehearsing — Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." Neil doesn't waste his big solo moment — having screen time on this show and facetime with the coaches is important — and he has a good time up on stage with the pressure off. Blake loves the "charisma" Neil showcases up on stage, while Niall Horan is impressed that Neil, who sang "Honky Tonk Blues" to earn a four-chair turn in the Blinds, can believably perform both Hank Williams and Marvin Gaye. It shows a range that'll serve him well in this kind of competition.

Although, perhaps it wasn't a completely pressure-free Battle: Blake jokes that before Neil got up on stage, he told his artist that if he "lose[s] this Battle, it will be the worst fail in history [...] this would be some Adam Levine-level failure stuff," he says, invoking the name of his one-time Voice cohort. Of course, in the wake of Alex Whalen's surprise departure, there was never any doubt Neil Salsich would be moving on to the Knockouts on Team Blake.

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