The gloss and grit of Alex G's major label debut
The lo-fi guitar hero appears to have his cake and eat it on Headlights, an album that preserves his inherent indie-ness for the big leagues
Fans were once known to riot when their favourite band moved from indie label to major, but we’re a long way from Bad Religion deserting Epitaph for Atlantic, or Nirvana swapping Sub Pop for Geffen. Outside of an outmoded idea of selling out, a majority of us are well aware of how hard it is to make a living as a musician in 2025; “shill on!” we cheer as artists get a brand hookup that will keep them in business. When a musician has been in the game as long as Alex G has, we feel all the happier for him; a man who’s cut his teeth to the gums over 15 years and 9 previous albums.
It’s not as if G (for Giannascoli) has been scrapping around all that time. After a few Bandcamp releases and a couple more for New York boutique label Orchid Tapes, he really made a name for himself as a lo-fi guitar hero on indie valhalla Domino. His time between making DIY rock records in his bedroom has been spent arranging on Frank Ocean albums Endless and Blonde, and scoring films, including one for A24, naturally. More recently he’s been writing with and producing Halsey. Nevertheless, here we are at Headlights, Giannascoli’s first album for Sony/RCA, which wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all if he wasn’t an artist whose charms have always been intrinsically linked to his indie-ness.
The album’s first two singles have been true to the archetype of an artist entering the big leagues whilst retaining Giannascoli’s biggest asset – his gift for melody. ‘Afterlife’ and ‘June Guitar’ sound unmistakably monied next to previous Alex G music; even ‘Runner’, which in part sounded so much like Soul Asylum’s ‘Runaway Train’ the law suit must have got lost in the post. Crucially, neither ‘Afterlife’ nor ‘June Guitar’ are over produced, but rather come after years of Giannascoli leaving work to do on his demo-like recordings, or not, as his legions of lo-fi fans will tell you. Both songs are amongst the best he’s ever written. ‘Afterlife’ has a particular sheen to it, a sunny type of pop song that men who looked like window cleaners used to fill American Football stadiums with in the 1980s. Its driving force of a mandolin is as undeniable as Peter Gabriel’s 12-string on ‘Solsbury Hill’, and doesn’t sound a million miles from it. ‘June Guitar’ is more ‘Fields of Gold’, with a couple of accordion solos that rise from the creek it’s been written for, where teenage models dramatise your hopelessly romantic life for a network show. But already Alex G is being Alex G: a man who’s stood out from the indie crowd many times by fucking around with his vocals – often pitching them up to Elf On The Shelf; going full Drake on ‘Cross The Sea’ – unless you’re listening on headphones, it takes a few plays of ‘June Guitar’ to realise that a squeaking in the background is his own call-and-response backing vocals.