It used to be that you couldn’t talk about indie rock without mentioning Champaign-Urbana, Ill. or one of its many bands. There was something in the water, the air or the soil that nurtured rockers, popsters and all-around weirdoes like Hum, Braid, Sarge and The Poster Children.

Just when it seems as if the onetime legendary properties of a Midwestern college town had lost the ingredients that nurtured so many of yesteryear’s favorite indie kids, Headlights pop up to remind us of its hometown’s glory days. Kill Them With Kindness isn’t a literal return to the post-hardcore and late-’90s noises that made C-U an unlikely hotbed of underground sweetness – there’s no recreating the town’s heroes – but rather a new chapter in the legacy.

While it’s impossible to ignore the comparisons to Stars that Kill Them With Kindness asks for, Headlights – which features former Absinthe Blind members Erin Fein and Brett Sanderson – is more than a tribute to the Canadian popsters. It’s a reminder that Brooklyn and bloggers haven’t cornered the indie-rock market. Breaking from the usual lock-step of indie-rock formuals, Headlights cross-breeds bubbly boy-girl vocals akin to those of Mates of State, a touch of Bettie Serveert jangle with the fleshed-out synths and slick synth production of Stars. It’s not the sort of thing that’s going to catapult Headlights to superstardom or cause the walls of scenseter pretense to crumble anytime soon (shucks on both counts), but it’ll bring a smile to the face of pop enthusiasts and Champain-Urbana diehards alike.

It’s the electronic side of Headlights that keeps the band moving. Aiming for grandiosity – and achieving it on a handful of tracks (“Words Make You Tired,” “Put Us Back Together Right”) – Headlights lays down a sound that moves between playful low-bitrate synth pop (“Hi-Ya”), melancholic accordion-and-organ dirges (“Songy Darko”) and jangly piano-guitar tradeoffs (“Lullabies”). While its strengths – Fein’s breathy vocals, an ear for synth extras and a base in solid pop – are present throughout, Headlights flip their proportions throughout, delivering an album that’s always about good songs, even when it dwells on the bad times of breakups and the ups and downs of love.

Whatever was helping C-U turn out great indie rock acts in its glory days is still working its mojo. Headlights is proof that you don’t need a goofy haircut, a Brooklyn or Los Angeles zip code or tons of pretense to make a great indie album. You just need the fire, or, perhaps, the ghosts of a dozen small-town heroes behind you.