The band describes the album as ‘calmer’ than anything they have previously released. Whilst experimenting with a new sound filled with synths, falsetto, and electric drums, the tracks still feature the soaring melodies, anthemic choruses, and crafty earworms that have always been their trademark.
Headlights is the title track off the album, it's a sonic and lyrical departure from what fans would expect from CrashCarBurn. Featured at the halfway mark on the album, the song is about finding comfort in someone you love and trust. “There is a safety that comes with headlights, a reassurance that everything is going to be alright because you can see where you are going,” explains frontman Garth Barnes.
The band extends this metaphor to the album artwork, which features the graphic image of a burning car. “Ironically, after 10 years of fighting any literal interpretation of ‘CrashCarBurn’, this time we embraced it. We bought a car, towed it into the middle of Johannesburg city centre in the dead of night and set it on fire to shoot the cover photography and a promotional video for the album,” says drummer Brendan Barnes.
“We didn’t overthink these songs. In the past, we may have scrapped a song because it was too slow to play live or a sound we thought our fans might not respond. This time around, we asked ourselves only one question: Does this sound great? Okay, let’s see where it takes us.”
