Headlights – The Enemies EP

This one starts quiet. Turn it up. Keep going, as that mechanized fuzz and hum starts up, because then the wash of layered guitar and lap steel hits, and it’s loud and lush and so gorgeous. This is the introduction you gain to Headlights, perhaps my new favorite band.

Headlights features all the members of Absinthe Blind (Parasol Records) minus Adam Fein, who was that band’s co-founder. After Absinthe Blind broke up, singer/guitarist Tristan Wraight toured with Maserati for a while, while the other Absinthe Blind members formed Orphans. When Wraight returned, they scrapped the Orphans moniker for Headlights and began recording this highly impressive debut as part of Polyvinyl’s mailorder series.

The band is undeniably an indie-pop project, with plenty of catchy rhythms, a great mix of male and female vocals, and a nice use of keyboards. However, also mixed here are pedal steel, violin, glockenspiel, and electronics, with plenty of intricate studio work to give the songs a layered, lush quality that may evoke bands like Spiritualized.

The aforementioned opener, “Tokyo,” features layered guitars and keyboard with some soft lap steel in the background and little doses of fuzz here and there. It’s such a sweet song, I guarantee you’ll fall in love instantly, and when the crunchy guitars come in with singer Tristan Wraight singing “another broken heart / another town you must take in stride,” your affair with Headlights will be cemented. “If home is where the heart is / Then home is here,” he sings, and it becomes obvious that “Tokyo” is really a love song, Lost in Translation style.

“Centuries” is a much more poppy and playful indie-pop song, with an upbeat rhythm and plenty of catchy keyboards. The repeated line “We’ll all die someday” is belied by the bouncy nature of the song. By contrast, “Everybody Needs a Fence to Lean On” is quieter, sweeter, featuring the female vocals of Erin Fein and some lush atmospherics before picking up a la Death Cab for Cutie and actually rocking out on the chorus of “Everybody’s got their enemies” with some crunchy, layered guitars. The final song, “It isn’t Easy to Live that Well” reminds me of mid-90s bands like Lush or My Bloody Valentine, the vocals pure and perfect, the pace sweet, the mixing of keys and guitars so perfect.

I want to hear more immediately from this band. I demand Headlights record more to make me happy, because I have listened to these four indie-pop songs over and over again. This is a delightful, playful, and sweet tease, indie-pop songs that are so well written and well produced that I swoon instantly. So nice…