I think I’ll start with the oldest two songs on this album, “Headlights” and “Midnight,” and as you may have surmised from storytime earlier, I’ve been waiting to write about these songs for quite a while now. For those seeking impartiality, you’re out of luck.

Within a week, I became captive to the EP, entranced by the raw emotion of “Headlights” and utterly overpowered by the literal everything of “Midnight.” His performance cemented this impression, filling Princeton University’s 1879 arch with the echoes of songs I had become beholden to, as well as yet-unpublished work like “Baby Blue.” So I’ve got a bit of a history with Miller’s music.

I actually recognized the album not from the title but from his name, which had piqued my curiosity as it was announced over a local Charlottesville radio station many months earlier when I first heard the song “Midnight.” Anyhow, walking back to my dorm room, I passed by an events bulletin where I noticed a poster announcing a concert by none other than Tor Miller himself on campus the following Saturday night. Paging through the paper-enclosed disks, I happened upon Headlights, Tor Miller’s debut EP. Recently, I’ve kept coming back to one box of used CDs in particular, a box of EPs. The Princeton Record Exchange is famous for its collection of used and unique pieces of music, confronting its visitors with an incomprehensible volume of accumulated albums upon their entrance.

I’ll begin with a story though, one that goes back to before this album’s inception. Thankfully, I’ve got some space to get into it. I could go for the list-off-all-the-various-descriptors-that-could-be-applied-to-this-album-until-I-have-a-thesaurus-rather-than-a-review or just admit that Miller’s chameleonic brand of soulful Americana escapes concise definition. Tor Miller’s debut LP, American English, is effortlessly evocative, but let’s be honest, I can’t possible encapsulate the multitudes within this album in an introductory sentence.

Tor miller headlights