On Headlights, Alex G writes about gripping the wheel, and his fear of losing it.
What of Alex G has warranted such a cult following? Above all – an uncanny ability to convey emotion.
Headlights is the best illustration of him. It’s an album about coming through the other side, making peace with yourself, and the singular experience of being in the driver’s seat. The things he sings about – even ten albums deep – provoke thought in a way that music rarely does.
The album flickers to life with the saccharine opener ‘June Guitar’. The light patter of bongos, heavily-plucked strings, and a haunting, rising accordion. The song is an earworm, and crescendos with that vibrant accordion. It doesn’t provide any sense of what is to come on Headlights.
One immediate feature of Headlights that is very different to what’s come before is how disarmingly literal it sounds. On the shimmering ‘Real Thing’, Alex remarks ‘hoping I can make it through to April/on whatever’s left of all this label cash’. On the standout, wobbly ‘Afterlife’, he speaks of running ‘in between heaven and the tv screen’ as he mulls having his music outlive him. He talks about punting that football ‘way up in the sky’ on ‘Beam Me Up’. On the closer, ‘Logan Hotel’, he sings about having to ‘pick a side’. He’s grappling with his music turning its most transactional, and if that’s not what he was always striving for.
None of those songs sound anything alike, and yet they are the most specific and straightforward on the album and of anything he’s ever done. The core of Headlights dovetails underground with the warbled, stadium/bedroom pop combination of ‘Louisiana’ and ‘Bounce Boy’. They sound like a retreat to his earlier unrefined work. ‘Louisiana’ is particularly sweet, featuring a honey-like rhythm and a booming drum. The lyrics on both tracks are barely decipherable, though on the latter Alex pitches his vocals high and whispers about his ‘heart in braces’ in a throwback to his formative albums.
There’s a strange through-line in Headlights on cars and propulsion. ‘Louisiana’ opens with the revving of an engine. ‘Headlights’ features the blare of a horn, or at least an instrument imitating one, and mimics blazing down a highway late at night. Alex sings of ‘flying down the interstate, just to watch the colours run’.
What is he trying to say? I think this is an album about staying in your lane. Not in the conformist sense. Rather, not deviating from the right path. The songs all share that unease; having gone down those other paths, knowing where they lead and why it’s important not to go there again. On the odd, alluring ‘Far and Wide’, Alex is at his most agitated, wondering aloud about whether he’s committed to the right cause as violin strings screech and come in and out of focus.
Recall Alex G’s earlier music, obsessed with bad people doing bad things, or occasionally wondering whether they are capable of change. Headlights seems to be about having found – through relationships or music or family or all of these things in perfect measure – the right lane, and grappling with the importance of committing to it.
We’re listening to a truly singular artist. When he sings on ‘Afterlife’ about what it might mean to have his music outlast him, he’s right to wonder. People will still be listening.
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL 