Hitting play on a new Alex G album can feel a little bit like that sequence in Alan Moore’s Watchmen comics where Doctor Manhattan sits on a rock on Mars, pondering the nature of time. It’s 2014. I’m listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in a small room in Philadelphia… It’s 2019. I’m listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in a slightly bigger room in Philadelphia… It’s 2022. I’m listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself in yet another room in yet another part of Philadelphia… It’s 2025.
That brings us to Headlights, the indie-rock hero’s tenth album, and his first for RCA Records. There was a time — let’s call it the Nineties — 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, he was already four years and several albums deep into a catalog full of low-key profundity.
He hasn’t veered far from that course in the decade-plus since then, and why should he? His tried-and-true methods haven’t 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’ll be greeted by the chiming chords and quiet wisdom of “June Guitar.” “Love ain’t for the young, anyhow/Something that you learn from falling down,” Giannascoli sings in one of many choruses you’ll find echoing through your gauziest daydreams for years to come. He’s the only musician credited on that song — playing acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and what sounds like a harmonium, with longtime co-producer Jacob Portrait behind the boards — 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.
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His live bandmates have even less presence on this album than usual, appearing on just one track, the energetic closing singalong “Logan Hotel (Live)” (which he has admitted is “basically a studio song” despite that subtitle). Otherwise, this is Alex being Alex. There’s 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 “Real Thing,” he opens with a couple of verses that sound like honest reflections of his (or someone’s) life — “Hoping I can make it through to April/On whatever’s left of all this label cash” — before lapsing into a wordless coda. On “Is It Still You in There?” he lets a trio of guest singers including Molly Germer, his partner of many years, deliver his words of eerie self-interrogation: “Has your wish come true?/Is there nothing left between the world and you?” And despite those hints of doubt elsewhere on the record, songs like the warm, nostalgic “Oranges” and the bright, bluegrass-tinged “Afterlife” are up there with his most life-affirming exaltations.
The bottom line is the same as it’s always been: You either find this stuff brilliant or you don’t. 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’s no doubt tired of being asked about in interviews). Alex G’s cult audience has never been bigger or more welcoming. Whether you’ve been riding with him for years or you’re thinking of joining up today, Headlights is an album that won’t make you regret that choice.
