It's been about five years since the last Car Seat Headrest album, and the drought is almost over. On Friday, the indie rock institution will return with The Scholars, the new LP that frontman Will Toledo produced. During the rollout, Car Seat Headrest have only released two singles from The Scholars -- not many for an indie rock album in this day and age. But those two songs, the 11-minute epic "Gethsemane" and the eight-minute "CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)," sure cover a lot of ground. Now, Car Seat Headrest have shared another track, which means that they've basically released a full album's worth of material before the album even arrives.
"The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)," the latest Car Seat Headrest single, clocks in at a relatively concise five and a half minutes. But like the last two, this one still works as a vast epic, one that swings between spirited rock 'n' roll movements without ever making its complexity sound forced. Will Toledo's lyrics chronicle how touring is like constantly encountering the "bones, dry bones in American towns," leftovers from "kids who don't know why they bleed because they couldn't meet their parents' needs." I liked this slice-of-life lyric, too: "Stuck in the smallest greenroom/ No way out except through the main room/ An hour to kill with the shirts on our back, four dead phones, and a cigarette packet." Listen below.
The Scholars is out 5/2 on Matador.
