Car Seat Headrest-Teens of Style Review

Artist: Car Seat Headrest

Album: Teens of Style

Label: Matador

Release Date: October 30, 2015

Website: https://carseatheadrest.bandcamp.com

Reviewed By: Cheyenne Heaslet

Music Reviewer

For the longest time the Seattle based band, Car Seat Headrest have been the sole outlet for guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Will Toledo to connect with the world. Starting in 2010 under the moniker Nervous Young Men, Toledo set himself up for the long haul misery that is the DIY music scene, and owned it. Since then he has developed a loyal following under a new name, rounded out the band with Jacob Bloom on bass and Andrew Katz on drums, and managed to release a staggering 10 records. His eleventh, the recently released Teens of Style is his first with the label, Matador, behind him, but even with the new support, Car Seat Headrest, to great effect, still sounds like the bedroom recorded guitar psyche-pop he was self-producing from day one.

Granted, most artists do not have the good fortune to have such a back catalog of previously released demos to scour through for their label debut, but the case of Car Seat Headrest isn’t typical, and neither are the results. While some artists with newly found label support would most likely throw everything and the kitchen sink into their product for their strange version of an overstuffed fantasy record, Headrest have actually not done much to the original sound. Many, if not most of the tracks found in Teens of Style are taken from their 2013 collection My Back is Killing Me Baby, and the biggest tweak done to the sound was dialing down the high volume vocals. Likewise, the tracks taken from another 2013 release, Monomania, such as “Times to Die”, simply evened out the wet reverb sound to give this collection sonic cohesiveness. The updated songs have polish, but it never imposes itself onto the style of the record.

The style of the songs in their natural, raw, bedroom sounding production benefit greatly from the stream of consciousness writing. Songs on Teens of Style, inspired by 50’s and 60’s era pop, such as the opener “Sunburned Shirts”, range in influence from Beatles and Beach Boys song crafting to Phil Spektor productions. Some tracks like the atmospheric ballad “Maud Gone”, with its organ hook and almost indifferent Brian Wilson sounding harmony appear as if they could be found in your parent’s locked record collection. Other songs that try a more modern guitar driven structure, like the biographical “Strangers”, also sound great with no compromise.

Thematically, Teens of Style is about what you’d expect from a band named after the singer’s isolationist recording technique. The feeling expressed on the album are both anxious and lonely with the longing to exert feelings past the band’s comfort. Even Will Toledo admits on “Something Soon” that he “wants to sing like I am dying”, and from someone like Toledo who got his start singing in his parked car to avoid his parents, we understand his frustration. This song, like many on the record, show Toledo reluctantly accepting his spot in the “divine council”, or at least on our ears. “Times to Die” expands on this, giving it an almost “Last Call” of internet indie rock feel. He even goes to far as to replace divinity with his new label’s boss’ name in the lyrics, singing, “got to have faith in the one above me/ God to believe that Lombardi loves me,” like he’s been praying to the label for years. Toledo seems to understand the new playing field and wants to make a name in it the same way he did before.