The polish doesn’t constrict or corrupt Headlights; everything that might appear as an indulgence only expands the range of an artist who’s basically a genre unto himself at this point. “Afterlife” isn’t Alex G trying to meet the mandolin on its own terms; it’s a mandolin learning how to sound like a bluegrass version of Beach Music. And if it does end up playing alongside Goo Goo Dolls or Sheryl Crow at a CVS, “June Guitar” honors that lineage of subtly devastating songs you can also use to EQ your headphones.
In sound and spirit, Headlights might be described as present-day “dad rock.” Alex G is playing with new toys that make records sound both more organic and expensive—banjo, accordion, mandolin, actual string sections. This puts Headlights right where it should be, in conversation with major-label debuts from the likes of R.E.M., Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie, and Modest Mouse; classics in their own right and gateways to some of the most influential indie rock of the previous decade. Still, the fidelity of Headlights is nowhere near as startling as the clarity of purpose. At the climax of God Save the Animals, Alex G sang about children and faith as the most exciting things that the future could hold. There was no authorial license on “Miracles,” no reason to assume “the narrator” was talking: Alex G has a two-year-old son with his partner Molly Germer, one of the few outside contributors to Headlights.
Headlights doesn’t address fatherhood directly, but rather the concerns that emerge when fatherhood cleaves your life into “before” and “after.” While Alex G is barely into his 30s, a curious college freshman embarking on their Alex G phase would have been 5 when Trick dropped. The first words on Headlights are “end of my rope, I swung so freely,” a bittersweet, ambivalent nostalgia intensified a minute later by the chorus of “June Guitar”: “Love ain’t for the young anyhow/Something that you learn from fallin’ down.” It’s a clever line, but more importantly, it’s sung like earned wisdom. Hopefully, this is the album that earns Alex G his due as a virtuosic voice actor, whose small tweaks in inflection release emotional tides (witness how the drawing out of “porno magazines” on “Afterlife” embodies both youthful abandon and future embarrassment).
With few exceptions, Headlights maintains a burnished silver tone, the sound of truth emerging after a dark night of the soul. Alex G ruminates on the boundaries between the spiritual and material, the nature of true love and, repeatedly, money. Here the dominant theme of Headlights plays out as old beliefs and new realities come directly into conflict. “Hoping I can make it through to April/On whatever’s left of all this label cash,” he sighs on “Real Thing,” a thematic centerpiece coming to terms with the fleeting nature of authenticity. With its echoing baritone guitars and brushed drums, the title ballad seems destined to live out on a lonesome highway as he whispers, “Let the money pave my way.” Soon, an overdriven synth jolts the arrangement to attention like the horn of an oncoming semi.
The recurring themes of displacement, of America’s great stretches of highways and ghost towns, underscores the supposition that this is indeed Alex G at his most personal; it’s a road album from an indie rock A-lister who has more reasons than ever to feel homesick. Headlights finds its destination with the raucous, rootsy rave-up “Logan Hotel (Live).” After embodying Philly indie rock for most of the past 15 years, Alex G sounds comfortable fitting into where it stands right now—even if he and his band are recording in an upscale hotel room with a grand piano. Sometimes you hear the money that went into Headlights, but you always hear the love even louder.
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