Release Date: Aug 22, 2006
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Polyvinyl
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
When the first song on the Headlights' debut full-length, "Your Old Street," begins -- a string group pulling and bowing in melancholic unison, a soft, plaintive cymbal, a lonely guitar -- it seems as if the tone -- sad, pretty indie pop -- has been set for the rest of the album. Yes, there are some hints of electronic instrumentation in the tinny keyboards and the guitar even gets aggressive as the song comes to a close, but mostly it's just another well-crafted pop song, sung perfectly by Erin Fein and Tristan Wraight, with the right mix of orchestration and empty space, of despair and joy. In fact, the songs or choruses in which the two singers share vocal duties are by far the strongest moments on Kill Them with Kindness (though Fein still sounds pretty good alone, a kind of extra-breathy Jenny Lewis).