Car Seat Headrest
Making A Door Less Open
Matador
Listen Below
Ten years ago, Will Toledo started recording as Car Seat Headrest alone in his parents’ car in Virginia before taking his guitar, computer, and hookup along to college at William & Mary. Toledo self-released nine records before Matador signed him and released Teens Of Style in 2015. Its follow up the next year, Teens Of Denial, won him even more critical acclaim. In 2018 Matador released a re-recorded and complete re-working of a 2011 record, Twin Fantasy (Face To Face), to even more applause. And last year the band performed with labelmates Interpol at Madison Square Garden.
A success story like this can thrust an artist into insurmountable expectations that weigh heavy on the human mind. Invisibility is immediately gone, privacy along with it. The impact it has on their creative work is up to them and I’m sure any warm-blooded individual can’t completely ignore it no matter how hard they try.
There are three stories that emerge when a new album is released: the one behind the record the artist delivers, the sonic story of the record itself, and what the press and critics say. It’s a lot to wade through and often overshadows the music itself. When we decide for people what and who they are and what they’re making says, and doesn’t, it’s more than putting words in someone’s mouth. It’s drop-kicking entire narratives into the public sphere, which are sometimes impossible to correct. (In 2018 Toledo called out a critic for making “a weird, gross, inaccurate representation of my personal life.”)
But it can be rectified if we question ourselves as fans and listeners.
Attempting a new sound organically as they grow, and as life changes around them, is natural to musicians. We’ve seen it before from Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell to Jack White. In the moment, it’s often shooed away by fans and critics. Historically, we want what we want: the old familiar, more of the same...but better! What’s happening on Car Seat Headrest’s new record Making A Door Less Open is Will Toledo’s instincts to shift gears away from the safe-bet patterns of his previous records. It’s the sound of something more, where he challenges himself as a writer and creator. I suspect he wants to challenge us, too.
When Toledo told the folks at Matador just how different this next LP would be, he flew across the country to deliver a PowerPoint about it. The suggestion was a joke Toledo took seriously from the man who signed him, Chris Lombari. He’d be taking on a new character, Toledo explained, sometimes wearing a gas mask (an idea born long before COVID-19). Matador loved it. “The artists’ ideas are always the best ones,” Lombardi said.
Making A Door Less Open could be read as a metaphor. It suggests something new will emerge through a window, should a door close. But if one door doesn’t shut, does the window open? What is that in-between space? Does it even have a name?
Back in February when “Can’t Cool Me Down” appeared as the first single, the change was self-evident by a pace set with electric keys. The Car Seat Headrest basics of mental health, drugs, and personal turmoil are still in the first verse, but the new terrain of drum machines is a fresh texture for the band and fans. Toledo has a mumble of a voice when he’s not enunciating or wailing with perfect diction. The beat in the background is a welcome foil to play with lyrics, layering, and loops.
When the next single “Martin” arrived in late March, there was guitar: another Easter egg of what’s to come where he meshes the band’s familiar guitar-driven sound with drum machines. “Hollywood” takes that same fusion one step forward with thicker mechanics, further delivering on the promise of new possibilities.
The record begins with a long tone on “Weightlifters,” an instant test to see if we’re ready to follow where he leads. “Hymn - Remix” shows us Toledo has already remixed himself (between vinyl, CD, and streaming there are three versions). At times, the record pulses to a point of electronica (“Deadlines (Thoughtful)”) with a sister track (“Deadlines (Hostile)”) that has the ethos of a Strokes song. But the LP also takes time to slow down on “What’s With You Lately.” Performed and sung by the band’s guitarist and bassist Ethan Ives, the alternate lead vocals continue the twist of delivery. Jarring synth filters show up on album closer “Famous,” where Toledo tells us right where he lies: “please let this matter / please let somebody care about this.”
“There Must Be More Than Blood” is the longest song on the LP, over seven minutes. It winds and shape-shifts. Toledo sings and whispers. Echoes surround as he swims, wondering what else holds us together.
Making A Door Less Open was recorded twice, first with the band—Toledo, Ives, Seth Dalby (on bass), and Andrew Katz (on drums) —and then with 1 Trait Danger, Toledo and Katz’s side project. The lyrics ground the record, reminding us it’s the same man driving the ship. Toledo is still writing about fame, the bad taste it puts in his mouth, and about the demons inside his head. He tells us he needs a break. He wants all this agony to matter beyond the cycle of an album.
Records like this make me excited for an artist’s future. It displays they are willing to interrogate themselves and their ways, and that there is more change to come. I commend Toledo for going against his own grain and pushing boundaries. Making A Door Less Open is a great record that I believe, in time, will act as a transitional artifact. Whether or not that transition will end here or escalate into something else is not up to us. All we can do is listen and keep questioning ourselves, and leave the art up to the professionals.
Notable Tracks: “Can’t Cool Me Down” | “Life Worth Missing” | “Martin” | “There Must Be More Than Blood”
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