Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars (2025)

Did the world need a rock opera from Car Seat Headrest? Maybe not, but it's a big swing with some glorious payoffs. Set on a fictional college campus, The Scholars serves up sketches of students and staff as they engage in an intellectual and spiritual war between defenders of canonical texts and next-gen rebels ready to torch tradition. Among the characters are "doubt-filled" playwright Beolco and Devereaux, raised in a conservative religion and now seeking a higher power. ("Pull me out of the fire/ Tell me you love me/ And throw me back in," go the lyrics of lush "Devereaux.") There are thinly veiled similarities to the life of singer Will Toledo, who founded Car Seat Headrest as a solo project 15 years ago and whose musical self-explorations have explored queerness, gender identity and even furry fandom.

On "Gethsemane," medical student Rosa is haunted by the pain of people she treats, until she seeks relief literally under the school—a place where, the album's bio explains, "ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans." "It promised me a good life/ If I followed all its wishes/ I never missed a prayer/ And I always did the dishes," Toledo (who can sound a lot like Julian Casablancas) yelps a capella before he's joined by anxious, spiky music—wheezing organ, Andrew Katz's rapid gunfire drums—poking and prodding. "CCF (I'm Gonna Stay With You)" starts off a little feral, with jazzy snare taps and piano plink, before stacked vocals issue a Supertramp-ish alien war whoop. Weaving in classic rock guitars, it travels a twisty path from prog rock to sweeping New Romanticism before finally landing on fist-raising, red-flannel rock.

While the album does not abandon Car Seat Headrest's indie-rock leanings or Midwest emo tendencies, it does flirt with a variety of styles. Doomy, heavy "Equals" builds to a bruising pummel. Ballad "Lady Gay Approximately"—featuring the memorable line, "If it's a breakdown/ Why won't it break?"—relies on a medieval acoustic hush. "True/False Lover" is pogo-beat pop-punk. With verses sung by guitarist Ethan Ives, excellent "Reality" taps into the fucked-up dreaminess of Bowie (clock that comet-streak guitar) and adds a rich caramel center of Alan Parsons Project goodness. Sprawling over 11 minutes, it explores the idea of rhythmic timekeeping controlling our lives and unnerves with the repetition of the line "Blood fell out from under me." "The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)" is a giddy epic with Beach Boys whoo-whoo harmonies and catalogs how, in the dream of starting a band, no one takes into account the world-weariness of touring and the constant push to impress. ("Is this kind of dumb?/ Does it put the ram in the ramalamadingdong?") "Planet Desperation" is a 19-minute adventure ride that again taps into the classic SoCal surf sound but is also a punky bolt, a quiet piano ballad and a glammed-up prog-metal march, not to mention a cosmic hypnosis session. Try to catch your breath.

TRACKLIST

1. Car Seat Headrest - CCF (I'm Gonna Stay With You)
2. Car Seat Headrest - Devereaux
3. Car Seat Headrest - Lady Gay Approximately
4. Car Seat Headrest - The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)
5. Car Seat Headrest - Equals
6. Car Seat Headrest - Gethsemane
7. Car Seat Headrest - Reality
8. Car Seat Headrest - Planet Desperation
9. Car Seat Headrest - True/False Lover