Car Seat Headrest - Teens Of Denial

Teens Of Denial is the eleventh studio album by American indie rock band Car Seat Headrest, originally released in May 2016 via Matador Records.

Car Seat Headrest is the project of Seattle singer songwriter Will Toledo. With a vision that is both sweeping in scope and intimately personal, Car Seat Headrest embodies the DIY ethos at its best.

Car Seat Headrest began in 2010 in Will’s hometown of Leesburg, Virginia. Needing a place of solitude (and soundproofing) where he could record his often frantic vocals undisturbed, a 17-year old Will set up shop in the family car (hence the name). From this humble origin, he has since built up a catalogue of staggering breadth and depth. In the last five years there have been over ten releases under the Car Seat Headrest name, one of which exceeds two hours in length.

While the songs of Car Seat Headrest are often long and complex, they are anchored by irresistible melodies and a piercing emotional directness. Dispersed across the globe, the CSH fanbase is the definition of a cult following: several thousand internet denizens who deeply connect with Will’s intensely honest and unfiltered approach to writing and performing.

With Teens of Denial, his first real “studio” album with an actual band, Will Toledo moves from bedroom pop to something approaching classic- rock grandeur and huge (if detailed and personal) narrative ambitions, with nods to The Cars, Pavement, Jonathan Richman, Wire, and William Onyeabor.

Teens of Denial refracts Toledo’s particular, personal story of one difficult year through cultural touchstones such as the biography of Frank Sinatra, the evolution of the Me Generation as seen in Mad Men and elsewhere, plus elements of eastern and western theology. The whole thing flaunts a kind of conceptual, lyrical, and musical ambition that has been missing from far too much 21st-century music.

Horns, keyboards, and elegant instrumental interludes set of art-garage moments; vivid vocal harmonies follow punk frenzy. The selfish captain of the capsized cruise liner in the Mediterranean in 2013 becomes a metaphor for struggles of the individual in society, as experienced by one hungover young man on the verge of adulthood.

The album was produced by Steve Fisk (Nirvana, Beat Happening, Soundgarden) at his studio in Seattle, July-September 2015.

This is the first full album of new music from Car Seat Headrest released via Matador Records.

Teens Of Denial received universal critical acclaim upon release, with Rolling Stone magazine ranking the album at #4 on their 50 Best Albums for 2016 list.

This double album 2LP record set is a 2023 repress on black vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves and a download, pressed in the UK via Matador.