Car Seat Headrest – The Scholars

Car Seat Headrest announce The Scholars, a bold new rock opera that isn’t just a new chapter for the premiere standard bearers of young internet rockers but also a spiritual rebirth, and the band’s first studio album in five years. Set at the fictional college campus Parnassus University, the songs on The Scholars are populated with students and staff whose travails illuminate a loose narrative of life, death, and rebirth.

While The Scholars has some of the most expansive Car Seat Headrest songs to date, including the nearly 19-minute long ‘Planet Desperation’, and opener ‘CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)’, they know how to make each part of the journey compelling, filling the runtimes with unexpected turns and stimulating hooks. And moments like the jaunty ‘The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That Man)’ show they haven’t lost their ability to write a short-and-sweet single that chimes like classic ‘60s folk pop, updated for the present.