Let’s be honest: Alex G’s newest album is a little sleepy and hears him comfortably in the safe lane as far as where his creative state of mind can wander. That’s perfectly fine. Not every recommended album needs to be a sensory delight. It’s also still very good as far as muted, naturalist songwriting gestures go. When you consider everything that has gone down in the personal life of one Alexander Giannascoli since the release of his 2022 album God Save the Animals, it all makes sense, too.

For one, he’s now on a major label — signing with RCA Records for this, his 10th studio effort. That detail alone is bonkers but an amazing fete, if not just because of the state of everything in the current music industry at large, but his start playing in basements, and making a name for himself as a DIY Bandcamp darling. Over the last two years, he’s also become a dad. Dads got mouths to feed! Put it all together with that boost in Gen Z cult hero cred from the shifting tides of influence which TikTok virality can hold, and these Headlights have been staring down at us for quite some time now.

Think of this album as a listen better consumed seaside at the Newport Folk Festival rather than in a hardcore pit at the recent Outbreak Fest which Alex G headlined. Most of the tracks here are humbled neatly in acoustic guitars, violin, cellos and violas, and debonair piano that makes its aesthetic rest somewhere between the rustic symphonic and the more experimental indie prestige-leanings of a Destroyer album that go all the way in upending traditionalism (“June Guitar”, “Oranges”). Beyond “Bounce Boy” and “Far and Wide”, those fantastically-voiced alter-egos that often popped up throughout Giannascoli’s past work seem to be drifting further into the rearview, although there’s still the omnipresence of compositional flourishes where the focus blurs (“Beam Me Up”, “Spinning”,) or the delicate angles suddenly bend into the sun (“Afterlife”) or a much more heavier and humid shoegazing weight (“Louisana”.)

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Alex G discussed his increased need to redo takes in order to get songs to his own perceived place of perfection. The result of that may have removed some of those uncanny surprises from the equation, though neater and tidier even if there’s some gray strays showing up every now and then in his beard. All in all, it’s still a good look on his sound. In his major label bag era, Headlights merges Alex G with ease down a long road of success to come as one of indie rock’s best accidental success stories.

Highlights: “Afterlife”, “Louisana”, “Oranges”

Alex G’s Headlights is available now on RCA Records.

Buy | Stream