HEADLIGHTS
SOME RACING, SOME STOPPING
POLYVINYL RECORD COMPANY
WORDS: ALEC NIEDENTHAL

Now— isn't that cute? Some Racing, Some Stopping. Like hearts. Or maybe horses. Persons, perhaps? It's quite a comely little title for an appropriately pulchritudinous record, especially when compared to Headlights' 2006 masterpiece of popcraft, paradoxically entitled Kill Them with Kindness (oh, indie pop only gets cleverer!). However inessential the anatomy of an ostensibly harmless indie pop album's title might seem, dissection is all too necessary when one seeks to augur the pervading disposition of either record. Where Kill Them with Kindness was ethereal, lambent, and by turns acrimonious and rustic, Some Racing is tender, heartfelt, blithe but at time affectingly sad, and often cockle-warmingly earnest.

The album begins with the artless number "Get Your Head Around It," which, truth be told, doesn't come anywhere near capturing the charming magic of "Your Old Street," whose nostalgic yearning still drives me wild with some strange permutation of envy whenever I happen to hear it; instead, "Get Your Head Around It" is a somewhat generic opener, though nonetheless endearing and (as if it were to be any different) instantly catchy—but no matter, because the real gems are struck at once. (Thankfully the closer, "January," is a splendorous affair, a fitting end to a terrific album.) "Cherry Tulips," which follows "Head," is a naïve (in a good way), Proustian panegyric to cherry tulips and the timelessness of the preterite. Its poignant melody, whose quality remains consistent throughout the entire freaking album, believe it or not—largely driven by Ms. Erin Fein's mellifluous yet not too saccharine (as the indie pop spectrum is far too saturated with sugary-sweet crooners these days, and so Ms. Fein's voice and mode of melody is quite especial) timbre, which propels me into fits of unabated yearning and emotional meltdown (Ms. Fein, if you're reading this, please marry me, and if you're already married, well, we can work something out, surely), attended by the gentle crooning of Tristan Wraight (Mr. Wraight, if you're reading this, I hope you don't take it personally, but I don't think we're right for each other)—gives me those maudlin chills up the spine, the variety ascribed to only acutely uncommon, truly and sincerely powerful music, the kind of music that gives you hope during those hopeless winter months, that gives you passion when there's nothing left to be passionate about, that leaves you in affectionate awe, an amalgam of wintry sorrow and prismatic glee, listen after listen after beautiful listen.

I'm completely serious when I say that every song on this record conjures images of Proust's Combray in my head, which is to say that its almost listless pace and rhapsodic musicality evoke pictures of flowers and gently flowing rivers and lost loves and the quest to recapture memory. At its best, Some Racing hits you with a lovely quintuplet (yes, quintuplet) of sentimental, but certainly not histrionic, and dangerously infectious pop songs; that is, "Cherry Tulips"-"Some Racing, Some Stopping." Particularly, "On April 2"'s final refrain of "Oh how the day will pass / The time will seem to last and last / The day will pass / On by" is almost too pretty to bear. The album's lyrical content is oftentimes overshadowed by its ebullient melodies, but it's entirely commensurate with the tone and composition of the music: reflective, transparent, slightly mawkish and undeniably magnificent.

Of course there's the requisite lush orchestral accompaniment, temperate and blissful, by turns brilliantly tumid and reservedly hushed (see both the heartbreaking title track and the surging "April 2"). This is what indie pop is, folks. Forget Stars (which hasn't been hard for me, really). Forget Vampire Weekend (I know that'll be hard for some of you). Some Racing, Some Stopping is a roiling bravura of opulent melodies and sensuous orchestration, and even though it doesn't retain the same oneiric, introspective quality of its venerable predecessor, it more than compensates with finger-licking harmonies, gorgeous lyrics, and a refreshing sense of torpor. It's everything a modern indie pop record should be.