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ALBUM REVIEW – Machine SEAT HEADREST: THE SCHOLARS
“You can adoration again, if you try again.”
[Enter Stage]
Everyone’s favourite internet obsessed band is back!
…Well one of my favourites. The lovechild of Virginia-born Will Toledo, what once started out as a simple solo project, coalescing into a full band project, returns after 5 years with “The Scholars”, an album that, at its underlying core, is perhaps the band’s most daring, yet atypical release.
Perhaps The Scholars had to be unlike, many weren’t left impressed with 2020s “Making a Door Less Open” and whilst I didn’t understand the backlash to a certain extent, it was a notable stepdown from the sheer magnum opus that was 2018s “Twin Fantasy”. Not everyone can strike lightning in a bottle in succession.
But how atypical can Toledo get, the similar guy that made ‘Beach Life-In-Death’, the same guy whose vocals bellowed and beckoned in the climax of ‘Famous Prophets’?
Well, that is easy, set your new album in a fictional university called Parnassus, and have the album focus on a goddamn goat personality called Beolco that believes himself to be the reincarnation of some long-lost beloved playwright called “The Scop”.
Car Seat Headrest and Asexuality
by Owen Murray
The sexual coming of age story has been retold in song thousands of times, and will doubtless be told a thousand times more. A merge of confusion and lack of confidence, followed by some bravery, a pinch of magic, and hooray! It’s a compelling story and an almost universally relatable one. Loads of LGBTQ+ artists have helped form the way this story is told in music to make it more inclusive. But what about the people who don’t relate to the story at all? Asexuality doesn’t quite have a place in the compelling coming of age narrative, but Car Seat Headrest manages to make it work.
Car Seat Headrest began as the solo project of Will Toledo, the band’s lead singer, and has since evolved into a full-band ordeal. The first Car Seat albums were released on Bandcamp and featured intensely personal lyrics often dealing with clumsy sexual encounters, mental health, and self-examination. On these albums, Will anxiously questions his sexuality, gender, and the significance of gender identity in general. Amid the anxiety, there are moments of clarity, many of which come while Will considers the idea of asexuality. I’m not going to s
Car Seat Headrest on The Scholars and Approximating Tradition
Will Toledo of Automobile Seat Headrest liked the idea of a rock opera, but he didn’t want to totally commit to one. His band’s newest record The Scholars, which comes out May 2 via Matador Records, is an ambitious principle that feels like the approximation of a traditional rock opera. With some songs over eight minutes in length—which, in retrospect, is on par with the rest of their discography, save for the 19-minute-long track, “Planet Desperation”—Toledo wrote a collection of stories and reflection of fictional college students at the magical Parnassus University, each with their have majors and relationships to authority figures that unfold into an all-out intellectual war.
Yet, while the characters ponder the legacy of knowledge passed down to them, Toledo himself sought to familiarize himself with musical tradition and locate ways to both settle homage and challenge it. What we get is an indie rock write down that doesn’t sacrifice personality studies or thematic explorations for narrative; it celebrates the band just as much as the dense, lyrical writing. (The Scholars is replete with musings on coming of age, intellectual
Closing the Door on an Opportunity
Out homosexual singer/ songwriter Will Toledo released 11 albums under the name Car Seat Headrest, playing all the instruments on them, from 2010 to 2015. While attending college in Virginia, he dropped them on Bandcamp, slowly building up a following. He murmured songs fancy “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fag” and “Heartless Dick” into a four-track recorder from the help seat of a car (which led to the project’s name). This underground buzz led to a deal with Matador Records.
Once Toledo had access to a wider audience and a true recording budget, he returned to some of his older songs on “Teens of Style.” Automobile Seat Headrest became an actual band, fleshed out by guitarist Ethan Ives, bassist Seth Dalby, and drummer Andrew Katz (and several additional touring members). But until now, the band has only recorded one album of modern songs for Matador, “Teens of Denial.” It mixed influences from their ‘90s precursors at the label (especially Guided By Voices) with emo and classic rock. The band’s impulse to produce themselves small had disappeared. Instead, Toledo engaged in long-form storytelling like “(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School For Using) Drugs With Fr