Headlights
Indie Rock / Pop
he story of Headlights' new album starts in an old, two-story farmhouse just outside of Champaign, IL. Nestled between corn and soybean fields, and within view of encroaching industry — a freight train line, a FedEx plant, and the local mall visible from the 2nd floor window — this farmhouse was the site where the band wrote and recorded its sophomore full length album, Some Racing, Some Stopping.
To fully understand what went into the album, one must first understand what led up to it. Since its formation in 2004, the band has toured virtually nonstop, playing over 300 shows in the past two and a half years in support of both its debut Enemies EP and its stunning 2006 full length, Kill Them With Kindness. It was a remarkable achievement, but ultimately Headlights members Tristan Wraight, Erin Fein, and Brett Sanderson needed a break. So in the Spring of 2007, Fein and Sanderson moved into Wraight's farmhouse, and leisurely, little by little, the trio started to write. This time they wanted something different from the live-based approach to writing and recording that had led to the obsessively crafted takes on Kill Them With Kindness. This time they wanted something more natural, more immediate, more spontaneous. As Fein says, they wanted to "capture the moment of a new song."
Now working from home, without the pressures of studio timeframes and a ticking hourly rate, the band was free to write and record as they saw fit. The songs were recorded as they were written, and many of the tracks that were used were first takes. Based around Wraight's acoustic guitar and Fein's keyboards, the songs on Some Racing, Some Stopping purposefully lack much of the spacey atmospherics that define the band's earlier work. Instead, the album, which is self-produced with drummer Sanderson manning the boards, is steeped in a classic pop sensibility, reminiscent of the '60s, Brill Building song craft, and Phil Spector production. Songs like the chiming, harmonic "Catch Them All," the light and airy "Cherry Tulips," the solemn "January," and the driving, string-touched "Market Girl" are evidence of an album that is more focused, and, in a sense, more simplistic than any of the band's past work.
|