I love instrumental song titles. The little bit of context they provide goes a long way in coloring our understanding of the piece. Strange Torpedoes’ “Watching the Driveway (for Headlights That Never Came)” might be about latchkey kids or a stood-up prom date or a really sad dog. We don’t know. But the little bit of melancholy the title provides goes a long way in anchoring Strange Torpedoes’ rubbery, experimental headspace.
Between the ’90s styled kick-snare interplay of the drum kit and the jangled-to-the-point-of-janky acoustic guitar, it’s hard not to think of Dust Brothers-era Beck while listening to “Watching the Driveway.” That is, until about twenty seconds in, when you realize that what you thought was the intro turns out to be a foot slowly pushing on the accelerator. As a guitar (at least, I think it is a guitar) slowly rises from standard feedback to a banshee wail, you realize that for all the R&B trappings Strange Torpedoes lured you in with, what you have actually stumbled upon is something very freaky.
Strange Torpedoes manipulate mumbling voices beyond comprehension, weaving them between the rhythmic pocket and the avant-garde. The dizzying result leaves the listener torn. This dissonant feeling – hearing something so rhythmically familiar but so atonal – must sound how watching the driveway feels. You expect the melody like you expect headlights. Neither comes. Then, slowly, the expectation fades away.