The polish doesn’t constrict or corrupt Headlights; every thing that may seem as an indulgence solely expands the vary of an artist who’s principally a style unto himself at this level. “Afterlife” isn’t Alex G making an attempt to fulfill the mandolin by itself phrases; it’s a mandolin studying tips on how to sound like a bluegrass model of Seashore Music. And if it does find yourself enjoying alongside Goo Goo Dolls or Sheryl Crow at a CVS, “June Guitar” honors that lineage of subtly devastating songs you can too use to EQ your headphones.
In sound and spirit, Headlights is likely to be described as present-day “dad rock.” Alex G is enjoying with new toys that make data sound each extra natural and costly—banjo, accordion, mandolin, precise string sections. This places Headlights proper the place it ought to be, in dialog with major-label debuts from the likes of R.E.M., Elliott Smith, Dying Cab for Cutie, and Modest Mouse; classics in their very own proper and gateways to among the most influential indie rock of the earlier decade. Nonetheless, the constancy of Headlights is nowhere close to as startling because the readability of function. On the climax of God Save the Animals, Alex G sang about youngsters and religion as probably the most thrilling issues that the long run might maintain. There was no authorial license on “Miracles,” no cause to imagine “the narrator” was speaking: Alex G has a two-year-old son together with his associate Molly Germer, one of many few outdoors contributors to Headlights.
Headlights doesn’t tackle fatherhood instantly, however relatively the issues that emerge when fatherhood cleaves your life into “earlier than” and “after.” Whereas Alex G is barely into his 30s, a curious faculty freshman embarking on their Alex G section would have been 5 when Trick dropped. The primary phrases on Headlights are “finish of my rope, I swung so freely,” a bittersweet, ambivalent nostalgia intensified a minute later by the refrain of “June Guitar”: “Love ain’t for the younger anyhow/One thing that you just be taught from fallin’ down.” It’s a intelligent line, however extra importantly, it’s sung like earned knowledge. Hopefully, that is the album that earns Alex G his due as a virtuosic voice actor, whose small tweaks in inflection launch emotional tides (witness how the drawing out of “porno magazines” on “Afterlife” embodies each youthful abandon and future embarrassment).
With few exceptions, Headlights maintains a burnished silver tone, the sound of fact rising after a darkish night time of the soul. Alex G ruminates on the boundaries between the non secular and materials, the character of real love and, repeatedly, cash. Right here the dominant theme of Headlights performs out as previous beliefs and new realities come instantly into battle. “Hoping I could make it by means of to April/On no matter’s left of all this label money,” he sighs on “Actual Factor,” a thematic centerpiece coming to phrases with the fleeting nature of authenticity. With its echoing baritone guitars and brushed drums, the title ballad appears destined to stay out on a lonesome freeway as he whispers, “Let the cash pave my means.” Quickly, an overdriven synth jolts the association to consideration just like the horn of an oncoming semi.
The recurring themes of displacement, of America’s nice stretches of highways and ghost cities, underscores the supposition that that is certainly Alex G at his most private; it’s a highway album from an indie rock A-lister who has extra causes than ever to really feel homesick. Headlights finds its vacation spot with the raucous, rootsy rave-up “Logan Lodge (Reside).” After embodying Philly indie rock for a lot of the previous 15 years, Alex G sounds comfy becoming into the place it stands proper now—even when he and his band are recording in an upscale resort room with a grand piano. Typically you hear the cash that went into Headlights, however you all the time hear the love even louder.
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