After a dozen albums, both as a band and as Will Toledo’s solo project, Car Seat Headrest has carved out a niche for lo-fi indie rock experimentalism. After the polarizing experiment with electronica on 2020’s Making a Door Less Open, the safe bet would be returning to something like 2016’s Teens of Denial or 2018’s Twin Fantasy, both of which got a second life after finding TikTok fame. Instead, the indie rocker band returns with one of its most ambitious albums, a rock opera exploring faith and spirituality.
The Scholars is a rock opera based on an obscure poem by the Archbishop Guillermo Guadalupe del Toledo. Still, it takes the various characters from that poem and sets them on a fictional college campus. The main storyline weaves interconnected stories of students struggling with their spiritual beliefs, searching for meaning, and clashing with those with divergent beliefs. In each song, Toledo sings from the point of view of one or more characters, each grappling for answers.
The album opener, “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You),” sets the tone, with drummer Andrew Katz’s frenetic rhythms and Ethan Ives noodling over a slow, sparse piano line. It’s a discordant song introducing an opera about dissonance. After a French intro, the song introduces one of the opera’s main characters, Beolco, who struggles with doubt throughout the storyline. “There was a line that my idols crossed that I could not cross. On the other side is love, and right here is loss,” Toledo sings in character as Beolco.
The song combines loud, distorted guitars and gently strummed acoustics with thick layers of saccharine synthesizers. This isn’t raw, lo-fi rock from an artist who once recorded in his car. It’s the slick production you’d expect in a rock opera.
Car Seat Headrest has always used contrasts to great effect. In “The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man),” jangling folk strumming meets hectic rock riffing, and the intensity ebbs and flows as the indecisive characters decide to start a band and quickly become discontent with the lifestyle. “If you’re looking for one light of hope amidst the pile of bones, well, you can come with us tonight,” Toledo sings.
“Equals” employs loud and soft dynamics to heighten tension in an awkward conversation, where Periomes, one of the professors, discusses being accused and disliked at the school. “Without a defense I stand,” Toledo sings as Periomes. “What was the point of these hands if they could give nothing but pain?” Beolco is the only person he thought would listen, but he has no comfort.
“Gethsemane,” an epic prog-rock track that careens between a soft ballad and a fiery rocker, pitting grungy guitars with Who-inspired pulsating synths. The song tells a convoluted story about abduction, supernatural healing, and the personification of doubt. “I’ve called to you a thousand times to take away this cup,” Toledo sings as Rosa, referencing Jesus’ prayer for deliverance in the titular garden. “But there will be no miracles ‘til the ransom’s added up.” An adversary called Behemoth taunts her prayer. “I’ve never seen God in my lifetime.”
The Scholars is a dense album with stories that reward repeated listening. Repeated listens, along with reading the liner notes and researching references to the source poem and to Shakespeare, Mozart, the Bible, and more, are required to understand what in the world is going on. Without proper context, the songs are confusing, and it’s not clear who’s singing to whom.
However, a good rock opera can be appreciated even if the greater story isn’t understood. The songs on The Who’s Tommy and Nine Inch Nails’s The Downward Spiral are great even stripped of the context of the overarching narrative. Without that context, the songs on The Scholars are still good. There are enough catchy hooks and eclectic compositions to keep things interesting, though it never reaches the high levels of Twin Fantasy. The Scholars is a bit of an overreach, with puzzling narratives following too many characters to track without help, but it’s impressive for its ambition and giant swing at transcendent art.
