Review
There’s an expansive ambition to The Scholars that hits you before the first guitar chord lands—like opening a door into a sprawling campus where every hallway echoes with purpose and possibility. After a five-year silence, Car Seat Headrest return not with subtlety but with a rock-opera declaration: nine tracks (clocking in around 70 minutes) centered on fictional life at “Parnassus University,” grappling with youth, myth, suffering, and transcendence.
Musically, the album balances the scrappy indie-rock DNA the band built across earlier releases with a newfound cinematic sweep. On songs like “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” and “Devereaux”, melodic blasts collide with gritty guitars and analog textures, giving the impression of a band who’ve grown without losing their edges. The writing credits expand beyond frontman Will Toledo: the whole band contributes, and the sound feels more collaborative, more alive.
That said, The Scholars doesn’t make itself easy. The narrative ambition can weigh it down—at times the mythology feels tangled, the runtime generous to a fault, and the standalone songs sacrifice immediate hooks in favor of thematic complexity. But if you lean in, you’ll find a band not just evolving, but reaching—to story, to spectacle, to meaning. It’s Car Seat Headrest’s finest full-band moment yet: loud, layered, and wide awake. - Emily
