Dear and the Headlights

With their instantly recognizable tunes, Dear and the Headlights make music you swear you’ve heard a million times before, as if the melodies had been stolen from somewhere. But you haven’t, and they weren’t. It’s almost like sculpture, where the artist simply frees the art from its stone prison: Dear doesn’t write songs so much as strip away whatever is keeping us from hearing what’s been there all along. From the elegantly matched ascending piano and vocals of “It’s Gettin’ Easy” through the jazz-pop-scented alt-country of “I’m Bored, You’re Amorous,” the band’s debut album wraps listeners in a comforting blanket of familiarity while the déjà vu factor creates enough tension to keep things interesting. That kind of pop wizardry is hard to come by, but Dear and the Headlights seem to have a knack for it.