Car Seat Headrest — Teens of Denial (May 20, 2016)

 ^{Car Seat Headrest — Teens of Denial (May 20, 2016)}
♠★■   Raw guitars meet lo–fi synths in this one–man studio project from songwriter and musician Will Toledo.
■♠★   On Car Seat Headrest’s first proper new album for Matador, frontman Will Toledo reaffirms that he is ahead of the pack as an imaginative singer–songwriter, capable of crafting dynamic indie rock.Location: Leesburg, VA
Styles: Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Power Pop, Lo–Fi
Album release: May 20th, 2016
Record Label: Matador Records Limited
Duration:     69:22   
Tracks:
01 Fill in the Blank     4:05 
02 Vincent     7:45 
03 Destroyed by Hippie Powers     5:04 
04 (Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem)     5:37 
05 Just What I Wanted/Not Just What I Needed     4:31 
06 Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales     6:15 
07 1937 State Park     4:00 
08 Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not An)     5:17 
09 Cosmic Hero     8:32 
10 The Ballad of the Costa Concordia     11:31 
11 Connect the Dots (The Saga of Frank Sinatra)     6:07 
12 Joe Goes to School     1:19
Album Themes: Introspection, The Creative Side, Late Night
Credits:
■   Seth Dalby Bass, Group Member
■   Jim Dejoie Saxophone
■   Gordon S. Fisk Back Cover Photo
■   Steve Fisk Producer
■   Ethan Ives Bass, Group Member, Guitar, Organ, Vocals
■   Andrew Katz Drums, Group Member, Mellotron, Mixing, Percussion, Vocals
■   Jon Maus Trombone, Trumpet
■   Nick Shadel Piano
■   Will Toledo Group Member, Guitar, Mellotron, Organ, Piano, Vocals
■   Mike Zimmerman Cover Layout, Design
Personnel:
■   Will Toledo — vocals, guitars, organ, piano, mellotron
■   Ethan Ives — bass, vocals, guitars, vibrato switch on organ
■   Andrew Katz — drums, mixed percussion, mellotron
■   Seth Dalby — bass on “Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not An)”
■   Jon Maus — trumpets & trombone on “Vincent”, “Cosmic Hero”, and “Ballad of the Costa Concordia”
■   Nick Shadel — pain on “Ballad of the Costa Concordia”
■   Jim DeJoie — saxophone on “Connect the Dots”
■   Produced by Steve Fisk
■   Recorded at Soundhouse and Avast! Studios
■   Cover layout & design by Mike Zimmerman
■   Front cover photographer unknown
■   Back cover photographed by Gordon S. Fisk
■   “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia” contains lyrics and elements of the song “White Flag”, written by F. Armstrong, R. Armstrong, and R. Nowels. Future Furniture, Universal Music–MGB Songs & Warnel Chappell Music Inc (ASCAP).
■   Everything else written by Will Toledo.AllMusic Review by Mark Deming;  Score: ****
♠★■   If you cranked out 11 homemade albums in just four years, you’d probably want to go big once you had the means to make a for–real long–player for a noted indie label. And though 2016’s Teens of Denial isn’t Car Seat Headrest’s first album for Matador Records, this is the first one founder, frontman, and songwriter Will Toledo built from the ground up for the label. Arriving in 2015, Teens of Style was a re–recorded “best–of” that revisited Toledo’s earlier material, but Teens of Denial is a grand–scale 70–minute song cycle about a kid named Joe who is wrestling with the traditional dilemmas of late adolescence and early adulthood. Unlike the lion’s share of Toledo’s work, Teens of Denial was recorded in a professional studio with a real producer (Steve Fisk) and a band (with Ethan Ives on bass and Andrew Katz on drums). Teens of Denial doesn’t sound especially slick (quite the opposite), but it feels big and ambitious; Toledo has a story to tell, and if his vocals are often laconic, they fit the material well, as he re–creates the casual eloquence of a high schooler’s mumble and shrug. Teens of Denial is that rarity, an album about teenage life that sounds like it could have been created by a 17–year–old, though few would have the intelligence and discipline to get their ideas on tape with this level of skill. Toledo understands that the circumstances of Joe’s life might sometimes seem trivial at first glance, but the emotions behind them, and the lessons doled out and learned, are not. There’s a real and powerful wit in these songs, but that doesn’t mean Toledo doesn’t take Joe’s travails seriously, and over the course of these 12 songs, he builds an epic out of the simplest materials. Rock history teaches us you can’t will a masterpiece into existence, but with Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial, Will Toledo has created something like a novel after previously offering us short stories, and it’s a piece of rough–hewn brilliance. ♠   http://www.allmusic.com/MiniReview
By Glacier Dropsy on May 21, 2016 (Amazon.com);  Score: *****
♠★■   My music tastes are admittedly stuck in the 90s. So leave it to someone born in 1992 (!) to restore my faith in indie rock. I’ve been playing this on repeat since I got it and I can tell it’s going to be in heavy rotation for a long time. Really an extraordinary album — ambitious song structures, big ol’ guitar riffs, and wry lyrics (a la my favorite band ever, Pavement). Car Seat Headrest have made the leap from lo–fi to mid–fi better than any band I can think of. It’s a shame about Just What I Needed/Not Just What I Needed being removed as the original version is superior to the replacement version. Favorite tracks: Destroyed by Hippie Powers, Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales
Also
By Jeremy Gordon, MAY 20 2016;  Score: 8.5
♠★■   http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21673-teens-of-denial/
Bandcamp: https://carseatheadrest.bandcamp.com/album/teens-of-denial
Tumblr: http://carseatheadrest.tumblr.com/
Label: http://shopeu.matadorrecords.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/carseatheadrest
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Car-Seat-Headrest-143033959103037/♠★■______________________________________________________■♠★

Car Seat Headrest — Teens of Denial (May 20, 2016)

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