The music of the band Headlights combines electronica, chamber-folk
and drone-pop, highlighted by minimalist, repetitive keyboard and
guitar patterns that bring to mind Brian Eno and Philip Glass jamming
with Velocity Girl. Singer Erin Fein, who also plays keyboards, escorts
the band through this hypnotic landscape with enchanting vocals that
hover somewhere between ’60s girl groups, ’70s bubblegum and classic
shoegaze of the 1980s and ’90s.
That description may make it seem that there is too much going on in
the music of this Champaign, Ill., group. Not so. The whole affair
feels spacious, with an emphasis on concise melodies and building
momentum. The first two tracks, “Telephones” and “Secrets,” build to
robust crescendos. The fact that the group has grown from a trio to a
quartet might explain why the sonic palette is richer here than on
their last album.
“I Don’t Mind at All” is especially cathartic, exploding near its
end with guitar freak-outs that might make Sonic Youth proud, while
“Dead Ends” and “Slow Down Town” are gentle, wistful and dark, not
unlike the music of This Mortal Coil.
Many of the songs flirt with sadness, poignantly exploring the
bittersweet nature of evolving relationships, the melancholy of growing
older and the transience of life. But the dreamy joy of the music will
remind many listeners of warm spring afternoons.
Headlights play with Anni Rossi and the Pomegrantes at 9 p.m.,
Sunday, Nov. 15, at Plush, 340 E. Sixth St. $7; 798-1298.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.