Car Seat Headrest – ‘The Scholars’ album review: a rock opera hidden in plain sight
THE SKINNY: If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being ill for an extended period of time, what do you think you would do in the aftermath? Maybe stop to take stock of your experience, then gradually start easing yourself back into normal life – but in Will Toledo’s case, he decided to write a rock opera. It may not be the most conventional method on the road to recovery, but this is exactly the result found in the latest record from Car Seat Headrest, The Scholars.
Fans of the American indie outfit will be well-versed in their usual sound, borne out of frontman Toledo’s solo efforts beginning some 15 years ago before morphing into a fully-fledged band, from which they have only continued to gather success. But five years on from their last release – 2020’s Making a Door Less Open – it’s clear that life has not only shifted for Car Seat Headrest, but in many ways completely spun on its head, which is the basis of where the concept for The Scholars begins.
Suffering from long-term effects after contracting Covid-19 in 2022, Toledo was left at home and turned to spirituality in his recovery. Subsequently becoming mesmerised by the world he entered into, the album took flight as a rock opera depicting the struggles and successes of the students at the fictional but fantastical Parnassus University, reckoning their own identities with the weight of the world around them while rebelling against the societally ingrained worship of the classic literary canon.
All of this seems very grandiose and fascinating – which it undeniably is – but the problem is that in a purely sonic capacity, is the full weight of this truly conveyed? Probably not. On a sheer auditory level, it sounds like a time-warp of the last 25 years of indie music packed into one; an enjoyable listen, but with none of the narrative imprint.
This is also not to mention the absolute breadth of some of the tracks, opening with eight-minute epic ‘CCF (I’m Gonna Stay with You)’ and culminating in the almost 19-minute ‘Planet Desperation’, enough to put even some of the guiltiest offenders like Bob Dylan to shame. Yet ironically, despite the plot arc of the students rebelling against archetypes, some of the album’s sonics just come across as too reverential of its predecessors – doing a rock opera just because it’s cool, not because it’s offering anything particularly new from a musical perspective.
If you’re into literature and theatrics, read along with the lyrical odyssey of the album as it plays and you will no doubt appreciate the narrative and creative ingenuity that has gone into The Scholars infinitely more than simply listening to it alone. With the sheer level of character and dialogue in the record’s midst, however, it does leave questions as to what Car Seat Headrest could be plotting next, because bringing the album to the stage may not be out of the realms of possibility.
For fans of: Reading and classic literature…because the album may be lost to you without it.
A concluding comment from William Shakespeare in As You Like It: “If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ‘tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”
The Scholars track by track:
Release date: May 2nd | Producer: Will Toledo | Label: Matador
‘CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)’: The album blasts into force with its first eight-minute epic, combining familiarly jaunty indie rhythms with a choral theatricality that acts as the ideal canvas for what the rest of the opera sets out to achieve. [4/5]
‘Devereaux’: Continuing on with some particularly classic indie rock sonics, this song easily sounds like something that could’ve glided through the radio airwaves at any point in the last 20 years and become a sure-fire hit. Sometimes the formula does work, after all. [5/5]
‘Lady Gay Approximately’: Mythical acoustics give the album an edge of introspection and quiet turmoil for the character of Malory, who returns home from the university to his estranged parents. But again, would you gather as much without background knowledge? Quite possibly not. [3.5/5]
‘The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)’: If the 2000s indie scene were to morph into one and birth a sonic lovechild, it could sound a little something like this. By the same token, there’s a timeless sense in its appeal, harking back to all the indie and rock heroes of days gone by to create less of a catastrophe and more of a blazing cacophony. [4/5]
‘Equals’: A military drum beat slowly begins to gear up the fire of rebellion that the rest of the album will go on to depict, while a Brandon Flowers-esque vocal from Toledo again pays homage to the music in which it finds its spiritual home. Narratively, it’s a turning point, but sonically, it’s pretty similar to what has come before. [3/5]
‘Gethsemane’: With the beginning of the song feeling like the calm before the storm, and subsequently across the rest of the 11-minute epic firing the full force of its battalion, ‘Gethsemane’ was an appropriate lead single for the band to launch the album from as it bleeds an evidently cinematic and theatrical quality that, unfortunately in this case, sonics alone don’t quite do justice to. [3.5/5]
‘Reality’: The aftermath of the battle and a crash landing back to life, if you will, the song is much quieter and more mundane than many of the album’s other efforts. But if this is a quiet resignation, then why, at 11 minutes and 14 seconds, is it longer than any of the other tunes parading much more fiery sentiments? It just feels slightly unnecessary. [2.5/5]
‘Planet Desperation’: This is the big one. If the length of ‘Reality’ was anything to go by, then it was evidently the precursor leading up to this. While a track of nearly 19 minutes is undeniably impressive in scale, the influence of infinite odysseys like those of Ziggy Stardust is all but spelt out over the course of the song. It’s a mighty feat, but you can’t quite shake the niggle of whether the whole point of the album has just been for Car Seat Headrest to try and prove they can do this. [3.5/5]
‘True/False Lover’: You’d be forgiven for mistaking that this is the closer of the album, as the song packs no real transcendental punch in the way a lot of record closers do. It could have quite easily slotted right down the middle of the orad sonically, but at least from a narrative perspective, the characters of The Scholars are left with some form of resolution rather than complete destitution. [3/5]
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