Released:
Rating:
An enigma wrapped inside an self-depreciating shrug.
‘Album’ of ‘the Week’
Label: Matador
Released: May 20th 2016
Rating: ★★★★
‘(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem)’. That’s the title of one track on Car Seat Headrest’s new album ‘Teens Of Denial’. It packs the lyric “Willed with loathing and religious fervour / I laid on my friends bedroom floor for an hour and tried not to piss my pants / And then I saw Jesus”.
And that, in a nutshell, tells you exactly what to expect. It’s glorious.
Will Toledo is a musician in the finest traditions of stateside indie rock. Lyrically sharp, only vaguely associated with ‘the rules’, and never really sounding like he’s forcing the issue, his thirteenth (yes, thirteenth) full-length is the kind of timeless gem that is quietly treasured for years to come. By the time the repeating refrain of the afore mentioned lengthily titled number comes around, it’s even been polished enough to shine the pop hit light on.
“I will not settle for the lowest common denominator”, Toledo exclaims on ‘Not What I Needed’. The beauty of ‘Teens Of Denial’ is that at no point is that even close to the case, and yet never does it become inaccessible or difficult. An enigma wrapped inside an self-depreciating shrug and a scribbled brain-dump; it may be white, male indie-rock, but it’s white, male indie-rock that understands itself perfectly. [sc name=”stopper” ]
