Headlights, Some Racing, Some Stopping
Featured Album
C86 Circa 2008: pop songs as delicate as a goodnight kiss.
Here's how it opens: with a steady humming organ, a twinkle of guitars and — shooting upward from the darkness — a soaring, pleading vocal. It's dramatic and it's perfect, the kind of introit bigger bands break their backs trying to create. The second record from Illinois trio Headlights is full of casual beauty, moments of pop elegance that arrive with natural grace rather than with blunt force and blaring fanfare.
Some Racing was recorded in a farmhouse outside Champaign, IL, and the songs it contains are, appropriately, airy and utterly cloudless. Vocalists Tristan Wraight and Erin Fein sing like they're sharing secrets: their voices are low and cottony, gliding gently over lacy guitars and blinking vibraphone. Even when the tempo escalates — "April 2" is shoved along by a walloping backbeat — the voices remain subdued.
The songs themselves are shimmering marvels; they don't hurtle so much as hydroplane, speeding forward a few inches above the ground. Fein's voice is light and cherry-flavored, and she drizzles it slowly across the length of each composition. Some Racing is the perfect tonic for fans of the small statement, a record for people who wished the world was full of more groups like The Field Mice. It's music that's meek but gorgeous, the quiet girl in the corner with the red lips and the pale skin who's smiling and whispering over and over: "Hey. C'mere for a second."
