Making A Door Less Open - Car Seat Headrest: Review

Car Seat Headrest

is the brain child project of Will Toledo that became a major bandcamp sensation in the early half of last decade. Off the back of this success the band filled out and signed to Matador records where they dropped one of the most critically acclaimed indie rock records of the entire decade in 2016 with Teens Of Denial. After remaking one of their most loved records from their bandcamp era in 2018 the band is back in full swing with their third Matador release. 

Review By Lavender:

In 2016 Car Seat Headrest was a modest curiosity for me having heard some of their most acclaimed and raw material on Bandcamp and thinking decently of their debut on Matador records in 2015. But 2016's Teens Of Denial completely blew me away in every regard. I called the song Fill In The Blank one of my favorite singles of the year and when I was wrapping up this decade I named the album inside my Top 30 and the song The Ballad Of Costa Concordia at #10, high praise. The band kept up this incredible high with the remake of Twin Fantasy that I thought was a huge improvement over the original and another home run album release for the band. It was going to be impossible for the group to keep up this level of consistency forever, but even with moderate expectations Making A Door Less Open comes off as good but not incredible. 

There is going to be a lot more praise than critiques given out to this album and the record deserves it but I want to get something out of the way really quickly. While the high point this record has is one that it reaches consistently there is nothing on this album that comes anywhere near the best tracks on the past two CSH records. None of these songs are among the best I've heard all year and thinking back on this record does make it seem a little drab given that there are many moments I like, but almost none that I love. 

The records first single was Can't Cool me Down a song that I didn't love at first but it has grown on me the more I've heard it and I think it holds up pretty well in the front half of the record. The song has bright synth line that builds into a soaring high point on the hook. Will's performance is dry but often quite dramatic in a subtle way that was refreshing on returning listens. There Must Be More Than Blood was another single I really enjoyed and it's even better as the compositional and emotional high point of the record. With a rewarding seven plus minute runtime the song has a build that is engaging and results in a passionate and instantly memorable high. It is often beautiful and always compelling, and the only thing here that comes close to the same level of storytelling expertise as the bands best tracks. 

The other two singles I wasn't quite as enamored with despite the fact that I enjoyed Martin when I first heard it. The song is soaked in all the teenage melodrama of Twin Fantasy but the second half of the track is such a boring let down compared to the riveting opening passage. The song feels like its weighed down by a long extended outro that I could really do without. The only song on the record I flat out don't enjoy at all is the song Hollywood which sees Will splitting vocal duties with Andrew Katz as the pair pen an anti-Hollywood themed song over a loud-quiet-loud indie rock instrumental. The attitude of the track just seems super forced and not at all thought out especially as the track awkwardly shifts between the two incredibly different vocal styles of its two singers. I don't hate this song as a concept but the way they executed it here really needed a second thought. 

Let me get the rest of my complaining out of the way before some of the better tracks emerge. Deadlines (Hostile) has a good lead melody and a pretty solid vocal performance the only issue I have with the song is that some of the songwriting gets flat out silly. Not only are there more lyrics on the song that make me shake my head but there are also really awkward instrumental transitions that seem to be deliberately jarring but I can't figure out why they are included because that doesn't seem to be the angle the song is taking at all. The track Hymn is wrapped around a really unconventional rhythm that is admittedly jarring at first. I don't love the vocal manipulation on the hook of the rapid fire jaunted house keys. The song is high energy but that is really all it has going for it. Finally What's With You Lately is a short interlude that sounds like an alternative rock radio ballad sung by Ethan Ives. While I welcome it as a change of pace it is so short that it's almost hard for it to make any impression on me and I certainly would never go out of my way to listen to the track outside the context of this album. 

All of that being said there is still a lot here I did like. The opening song Weightlifters is the closest the album comes to sounding like Teens Of Denial sonically. It pairs some beautiful lead vocal harmonies with punchy, driving percussion and blends it into a rewarding progression. The song has both a taxing intro and outro but neither are so tedious that they scare me off the track. Deadlines (Thoughtful) was a moment that caught me off guard in a good way as the song has shades of LCD Soundsystem in its winding layers of electronic instrumentation. I don't necessarily love that Will is singing with such hushed vocals in a track that is so in your face but all is forgiven when the second half of the song explodes into a loud electronic breakdown that is one of the most genuinely interesting moments the record has to offer. Life Worth Missing is a pretty good song that is fittingly sentimental in a way I really enjoy. The track doesn't rock as hard as some other moments here but it doesn't really have to as the distorted guitars and a blurry haze hanging behind passionate vocals that give the song a really compelling core. Finally the closing track Famous is a short one but a very good one that sees some much better application of vocal pitching. The instrumental is fluttering and busy and while I think it is a bit of a strange choice to close off the album it is a pretty good song nonetheless. 

Making A Door Less Open is a decent indie rock record with elements of electronic music working their way into it. The album would be a pretty successful start to a new groups career but at this point I wonder why Car Seat Headrest felt the need to only halfway explore a change in style. I think on their next record the band will either return to the narrative heavy lo-fi indie rock that they made their name off of, or completely commit to a stylistic transition and hopefully release something more definitive. In the mean time Making is a decent taster with a handful of good moments but also some of the weirder and more unnecessary songs you'll hear coming from the world of indie this year. 6.5/10 

Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson:

This cover has me confused. So much and so little is happening in this composition and none of it is successful but I'm oddly drawn to it. I like the little pop of red in the corner and the painterly strokes but what the hell is the chair doing there. I think it would have been successful without it but with it included it's just an eye sore. 

For more indie rock check out my review of The Strokes record The New Abnormal here