{"id":67374,"date":"2025-07-16T13:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T13:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67374\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T13:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T13:58:11","slug":"alex-gs-headlights-is-a-low-key-gem-in-a-catalog-full-of-em","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67374\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex G’s ‘Headlights’ is a Low-Key Gem in a Catalog Full of \u2019Em"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHitting play on a new Alex G<\/a> album can feel a little bit like that sequence in Alan Moore\u2019s Watchmen comics where Doctor Manhattan sits on a rock on Mars, pondering the nature of time. It\u2019s 2014. I\u2019m listening to an oddly moving song<\/a> that Alex G recorded by himself in a small room in Philadelphia\u2026 It\u2019s 2019. I\u2019m listening to an oddly moving song<\/a> that Alex G recorded by himself in a slightly bigger room in Philadelphia\u2026 It\u2019s 2022. I\u2019m listening to an oddly moving song<\/a> that Alex G recorded by himself in yet another room in yet another part of Philadelphia\u2026 It\u2019s 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat brings us to Headlights, the indie-rock hero\u2019s tenth album, and his first for RCA Records. There was a time \u2014 let\u2019s call it the Nineties \u2014 when an artist like Alex Giannascoli signing to a major label would have felt like a seismic shift, complete with passionate arguments both pro and con in photocopied zines across the land. But that world is long gone, thanks in part to the revolution that Giannascoli and his generation of DIY auteurs led in the 2010s. He was one of the first and finest acts to break through to a national audience by posting his home-recorded music straight to Bandcamp starting in his teens. By the time publications like Rolling Stone began writing about him<\/a>, he was already four years and several albums deep into a catalog full of low-key profundity.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe hasn\u2019t veered far from that course in the decade-plus since then, and why should he? His tried-and-true methods haven\u2019t stopped yielding uncannily compelling results, no matter the size of the label releasing them. Find a seat on that Martian landscape and pop on some headphones for Headlights, and you\u2019ll be greeted by the chiming chords and quiet wisdom of \u201cJune Guitar.\u201d \u201cLove ain\u2019t for the young, anyhow\/Something that you learn from falling down,\u201d Giannascoli sings in one of many choruses you\u2019ll find echoing through your gauziest daydreams for years to come. He\u2019s the only musician credited on that song \u2014 playing acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and what sounds like a harmonium, with longtime co-producer Jacob Portrait behind the boards \u2014 and his ability to create a sound this magical and lived-in that way remains remarkable, like whole histories of folk and rock music are expressing themselves through this one chill guy.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tHis live bandmates have even less presence on this album than usual, appearing on just one track, the energetic closing singalong \u201cLogan Hotel (Live)\u201d (which he has admitted is \u201cbasically a studio song\u201d<\/a> despite that subtitle). Otherwise, this is Alex being Alex. There\u2019s some back-porch strumming, some ambiguous yet powerful imagery, and an occasional splash of vocal processing, all presented with an appealing, off-the-cuff looseness. On the casually tuneful \u201cReal Thing,\u201d he opens with a couple of verses that sound like honest reflections of his (or someone\u2019s) life \u2014 \u201cHoping I can make it through to April\/On whatever\u2019s left of all this label cash\u201d \u2014 before lapsing into a wordless coda. On \u201cIs It Still You in There?\u201d he lets a trio of guest singers including Molly Germer, his partner of many years, deliver his words of eerie self-interrogation: \u201cHas your wish come true?\/Is there nothing left between the world and you?\u201d And despite those hints of doubt elsewhere on the record, songs like the warm, nostalgic \u201cOranges\u201d and the bright, bluegrass-tinged \u201cAfterlife\u201d are up there with his most life-affirming exaltations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bottom line is the same as it\u2019s always been: You either find this stuff brilliant or you don\u2019t. The number of people who do now includes enough true believers to fill many large theaters, as well as celebrity fans like Halsey and Frank Ocean (both of whom have tapped him as a session guitarist, as he\u2019s no doubt tired of being asked about in interviews). Alex G\u2019s cult audience has never been bigger or more welcoming. Whether you\u2019ve been riding with him for years or you\u2019re thinking of joining up today, Headlights is an album that won\u2019t make you regret that choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hitting play on a new Alex G album can feel a little bit like that sequence in Alan…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[47630,171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-67374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-alex-g","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114863269844864745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}