{"id":278,"date":"2026-05-21T20:11:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/?p=278"},"modified":"2026-05-21T20:11:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:11:33","slug":"the-ravenous-house-car-seat-headrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/new\/the-ravenous-house-car-seat-headrest\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Ravenous House\u201d \u2013 Car Seat Headrest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Six years ago, in the depths of the pandemic, I wrote about Car Seat Headrest\u2019s then-new record Making a Door Less Open.<\/em><\/a> It had first struck me as a deep disappointment, though I came around to appreciating the way Will Toledo\u2019s confusing, anxiety-ridden song fragments resonated during that incredibly confusing, anxiety-ridden time. I still like MADLO,<\/em> though I confess I don\u2019t find myself going back to it often. <\/span><\/p>\n

While trying to make sense of MADLO<\/em> in a broader context, I wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Toledo\u2019s oeuvre is also increasingly full of songs that are re-recorded, sometimes re-re-recorded. And it\u2019s all just out there; the new canon coexists with the old. The band\u2019s last wholly new LP, Teens of Denial,<\/em> is the only one in their entire catalog that functions as a traditional, static rock artifact. And even that comes with an asterisk, since the first pressing had to be destroyed after Ric Ocasek withdrew permission to reference \u201cJust What I Needed,\u201d forcing a second version of the album to exist before it even hit shelves.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Today, as Teens of Denial<\/em> turns 10, we can completely throw out any notion of that album being the band\u2019s lone \u201ctraditional, static rock artifact,\u201d because Car Seat Headrest has just released Teen of Denial (Joe\u2019s Story).<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

ToD(JS)<\/em> is ostensibly Toledo\u2019s reworking of ToD<\/em> into something approaching a cohesive story. This continues Will\u2019s recent shift away from writing in a personal, confessional style and toward more character-based narratives, a form most thoroughly explored in last year\u2019s excellent double-LP The Scholars.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

While this represents an evolution of Toledo\u2019s approach, it\u2019s not as dramatic as it might sound. The animal characters in The Scholars\u2019<\/em> libretto frequently present themselves as barely-concealed avatars for Will himself, including explicit references to his own past songs. Similarly, though this new take on Teens of Denial<\/em> is presented as \u201cJoe\u2019s Story,\u201d the majority of lyrics are unchanged from 2016 (I\u2019ll get to the ones that are<\/em> changed in a minute). As Toledo explains: \u201cJoe is a character going through some of what I experienced, and some of his own problems. Telling his story, and not just my own impressions of life at the end of the teen years, brought a new level of compassion and wholeness to the album.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The manner in which ToD(JS)<\/em> revisits ToD<\/em> is very different from the way Car Seat Headrest has revisited their work previously. Where Teens of Style<\/em> and Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)<\/em> represented entirely new-from-scratch performances of songs from Toledo\u2019s home recording era, ToD(JS)<\/em> retains the bones of the original album. I haven\u2019t done a deep one-to-one comparison (and I don\u2019t plan to), but to my ears most of the instrumental tracks sound largely identical; some notable mix tweaks, some more polished drum fills, but overall the same base tracks we\u2019ve known for the past decade. The vocals are a different story \u2013 more obviously a mix of old with quite a bit of new, though impressively produced by Steve Fisk in such a way that Toledo rarely sounds out-of-place alongside his younger self.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two songs have been completely removed from ToD(JS),<\/em> apparently for narrative reasons (though, while they\u2019re both great, they\u2019re also pretty clearly the most musically expendable tracks on the album). In their place are two brand new songs, \u201cOptimistic Son\u201d and \u201cJoe Drives Again.\u201d Both are written in an uptempo, power-pop style Toledo has rarely returned to since ToD,<\/em> and they\u2019re both phenomenal (even if \u201cJoe Drives Again\u201d starts to sound a little like Rusted Root at the end). <\/span><\/p>\n

The most jarring changes on ToD(JS),<\/em> though, are to the lyrics. First, the most striking (and, I gather from Stereogum,<\/em><\/a> controversial) update: all curse words have been inexplicably swapped out for new language. Some of the time it works (\u201cI get signs from the cops \/ Saying, \u2018We know what you are\u2019\u201d is evocative); more often, it\u2019s Die Hard<\/em>-on-cable-level cringe (\u201cI laid on my friend\u2019s bedroom floor for an hour \/ And tried not to wet my pants\u201d). Why it\u2019s apparently still okay for Will to sing \u201cdrugs are better with friends are better with drugs\u201d but not \u201cpiss\u201d is baffling \u2013 and I\u2019ll leave it to the subreddit<\/a> to debate what that\u2019s all about \u2013 but ultimately it serves as a massive distraction from whatever it is the band is hoping to achieve here.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other major lyric change is equally significant: \u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia,\u201d ToD\u2019s<\/em> central epic (and my favorite Car Seat Headrest song<\/a>) has been wholly rewritten into a new song called \u201cThe Ravenous House.\u201d Delivered over the original backing track, Toledo transforms \u201cConcordia\u201d from a youthful rant about personal responsibility into more mature, narrative verse that\u2019s rich in biblical allegory, describing the character of Joe confronting trauma around his brother\u2019s death. <\/span><\/p>\n

Will Toledo seems to have experienced a religious awakening in the aftermath of his extreme struggles with long COVID. This was apparent during the rollout of The Scholars,<\/em> but I guess it\u2019s only striking a raw nerve with some in the CSH fandom now. I don\u2019t personally see Toledo\u2019s Christianity as implying any kind of worrisome change in his politics; The Scholars<\/em> is an undeniably queer-positive record, and the only damage I\u2019ve seen that one might pin on his newfound piety is the aforementioned de-curse-ification of ToD.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, \u201cThe Ravenous House\u201d is the most powerful lyric from Toledo\u2019s Christian period to date. Joe sees his brother\u2019s absence as a wound on the wall of his family home, and he wrestles with demonic voices until he finally hears his dead brother\u2019s offer of love. It\u2019s even more operatic than \u201cCosta Concordia,\u201d effectively replacing the earlier composition\u2019s bitter snark with something more profound.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, but does it work? I don\u2019t know. \u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia\u201d is a perfect song; regardless of how beautifully written \u201cThe Ravenous House\u201d is, it still feels like a home invasion (though maybe that\u2019s apropos?). Ten years is long enough for a masterpiece like Teens of Denial<\/em> to become canon, which makes this taxidermying of \u201cConcordia\u201d something close to sacrilege. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though Will has said \u201cI didn’t make [ToD(JS)<\/em>] for anyone who already knows the album,\u201d it\u2019s really hard to figure out who he did make it for. Who, in 2026, is the audience that\u2019s open to listening to Guided by Voices-style indie rock as long as the singer doesn\u2019t say \u201cfuck\u201d? What\u2019s the point of delivering a new lyric as compelling as \u201cThe Ravenous House\u201d as karaoke on top of \u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia\u201d? Why not just release the fun new stuff as an EP instead of doing this whole George Lucas thing to one of your most beloved albums? <\/span><\/p>\n

While there\u2019s a lot I don\u2019t yet understand about this project \u2013 and plenty about it that makes it an uncomfortable listen \u2013 it\u2019s nonetheless a fascinating continuation of the artistic approach I described with MADLO<\/em> in 2020:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Unlike other contemporary artists who obsess over the shape of their legacy while they\u2019re still creating it \u2013 say, James Murphy, or Quentin Tarantino \u2013 Toledo makes sure his catalog is anything but static, or able to be easily numbered (he actually did start out numbering his albums, but gave up after four). To cleanly quantify his canon wouldn\u2019t suit the nature of his art. Allowing it to spill out, unimpeded by old models, every seam exposed, an insurmountable challenge for even the most dedicated fan to organize \u2013 that\u2019s Car Seat Headrest.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or, as Will put it more recently (and pithily): \u201cI believe music is an ongoing story, and albums don\u2019t always do justice to its dynamic, ongoing nature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia\u201d still exists, of course, and the original Teens of Denial<\/em> isn\u2019t going anywhere. Joe\u2019s Story<\/em> is something else, something additional. I suspect it deserves to be reckoned with further.<\/span><\/p>\n