Car Seat Headrest – The Scholars (2xLP)

Is there a band that captures the melancholic feeling of your teenage years as well as Car Seat Headrest? Probably not. The American band led by Will Toledo broke through more than ten years ago with albums full of youthful and oppressive indie rock songs. It often felt as if all the ideas in the head of the very perfectionist Toledo could only be expressed in his music. His lo-fi indie rock is full of absurd twists and striking experiments. It led to a cult following of young American guitar music lovers. After a five-year absence, the Americans return with a new concept album entitled The Scholars, which is set on a fictional university campus. In this way, Car Seat Headrest mainly returns with what we are used to from them. The band members have grown a few years older, but the college feeling is never lost. They also still translate these feelings into epic rock operas. Returning after a five-year absence with singles of 10 and 9 minutes would be a strange choice for many bands, but not for Car Seat Headrest. They like to make their best songs noticeably long, switch styles twenty times in a song, add quirky electronic touches, and build up to a climax full of guitar violence. This is also the case on The Scholars, a lesson in indie rock for advanced students. (Daan van Eck)

The first studio album from Car Seat Headrest in five years, ‘The Scholars.’

From Shakespeare to Mozart to classical opera, Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo pulled from the classics when devising the lyrics and story arc of ‘The Scholars,’ while the music draws, carefully, from classic rock story song cycles such as The Who’s ‘Tommy’ and David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust.’ “One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot,” Toledo notes. “I didn't want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is kind of a middle ground where each song can be a character and it's like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.”

While Car Seat Headrest started as Toledo's solo project, the four-piece is now fully a band. “What we've been doing more of in recent years is just taking the pulses of each other.” says Toledo. “It didn't really feel to me like things got in sync in an inner feeling way until this record, with that internal communal energy. And it's become that band feeling for me in a much more realized way. That's been a big journey.”

It is a journey that listeners will want to embark on again and again as they absorb and discover the rich depths and clanging resonances of 'The Scholars.'

Review

“The Scholars is an audacious, explosive rock opera that finds Car Seat Headrest at their most conceptually daring.” — Mojo Magazine

“These tracks soar to exhilarating heights of classic-rock crunch... a fully realized evolution from Will Toledo’s lo-fi origins.” — Slant Magazine

“The Scholars is a dense, narrative-driven triumph that balances chaos and clarity. It rewards deep listening.” — Northern Transmissions

“A sprawling, ambitious record that challenges the boundaries of indie rock. It's their most theatrical and emotionally complex work yet.” — Pitchfork

“One of the best albums of the year—melodically rich, lyrically brilliant, and endlessly replayable.” — Bandcamp user review