Album Assessment: Automobile Seat Headrest, ‘The Students’
It’s been no less than a decade since Automobile Seat Headrest achieved a essential breakthrough, but they’ve hardly shed their popularity as a university band. Take a look at it a method, and The Students is yet one more audacious experiment from the Will Toledo-led mission after the formidable electronics and insular narrative of 2020’s Making a Door Much less Open, an embrace of the rock opera as a pure match, and extension of, their evolving inclinations as a band. Take a look at it one other method, and it’s an opportunity to age into their indie rock cred and channel their communal spirit within the type of an idea album a couple of fictional college, taking part in with a forged of characters as they break up songwriting duties but uniting over the album’s most pervasive themes – sickness, legacy, insurrection. Although it meanders and wears the listener out in its last stretch, it rewards those that are affected person and studious sufficient to dive into the narrative. Even when you end up dropping curiosity, it’s arduous to not go away satisfied that is the dimensions and territory they need to be working with.
1. CCF (I’m Gonna Keep With You)
This being a track-by-track overview, it’s tempting to make use of the format to unpack the lore surrounding The Students the best way a diehard fan would, trying to make sense of its puzzling narrative by digging by the lyric sheet. However I’m extra excited about how a lot a extra informal – if nonetheless devoted – fan can get out of the album by specializing in the music itself. That stated, somewhat context remains to be helpful to get your foot within the door with this file. ‘CCF (I’m Gonna Keep With You)’ dives headfirst into the world of Parnassus College by introducing us to Beolco, a scholar who appears to consider himself a form of non secular descendant of its founder, a playwright named the Scop. It’s his most unsound ideas that teeter on the profound: “There was a line that my idols crossed that I couldn’t cross/ On the opposite facet is love and proper right here is loss,” Toledo sings.
As an eight-minute epic, the tune is a testomony to how effectively the band can pull off a set, piling one nice hook on prime one other. You don’t need to decipher the traces Toledo spins over and over to be delighted by the melody; not when the singer himself sounds so carefree. “Bear in mind I informed you, you within the air, all the things that you simply ever needed to really feel, check out all the things ready round you,” he sings to attract the tune to a detailed; you’re not even certain who’s chatting with who, nevertheless it hits.
2. Devereaux
The query of lineage carries over into the second monitor, which facilities on the “son of a backwaters non secular conservative” making an attempt his luck on the close by Clown School. In desperation, he prays to not the school’s founder however the grandfather who shares his identify: “Within the house between right here and also you/ There’s a child who don’t know what to do/ He waits within the silence to listen to.” (Within the earlier tune, it’s “the Silent Whisper” that delivers the refrain.) There’s much less catharsis on this tune, nevertheless it’s CSH at their most classically indie rock, which just about distracts from its thematic connection to the opener.
3. Woman Homosexual Roughly
Right here’s a tune the place the background does extra work than the precise music: “Malory joins the ‘birds of paradise,’” we be taught, “a group primarily based on beautification by the feather-and-fur modification, in depth costumery, prosthetics, and the like. After a 12 months with out contact along with his mother and father, he reveals up on Christmas evening unadorned and silent, for a tense dinner along with his mom.” Although that story ought to stand robust exterior the context of the album, the strain barely shines by, largely simply simmering. But it is smart that it’s right here.
4. The Disaster (Good Luck With That, Man)
The band ramps issues up rapidly with ‘The Disaster (Good Luck With That, Man)’, which is buoyant and fiery in a method acquainted to even essentially the most informal CSH followers. We as soon as once more hear by the attitude of the Chanticleer, which can also be when the songs naturally really feel extra private, if not straight-up autobiographical. The tune is a couple of troupe of clown troubadours, nevertheless it’s arduous to not learn into it as meta-commentary on touring: “I’ve pushed by the desert of irony/ Pushed throughout and I’ve seen an ideal many/ Bones, dry bones in American cities.” It feels honest and lived-in, communal and cathartic. The Wall and Ziggy Stardust are touchstones for this file, actually, however the pop-punk grandiosity and self-reflection align it with American Fool, too. It really works higher than you’d count on.
5. Equals
Right here’s the place issues get somewhat muddled, plot-wise – or thrilling, relying on how invested you’re within the story. Described as “a frantic late-night dialog” between Bealco and a university professor accused of stealing the cranium of a school bard, and doubling as commentary on cancel tradition, ‘Equals’ has little to supply past the file’s esoteric framework; no less than it doesn’t drag out.
6. Gethsemane
As a testing floor for The Students’ knotty ambitions, ‘Gethsemane’ knocks it out of the park. Its 11 minutes reward the listener even when they will’t separate the completely different views of the tune, whose serpentine association and heavy philosophizing come to life due to an particularly potent vocal efficiency from Toledo. Apart from, the story of Rosa, a medical scholar on the college who can soak up the ache of her sufferers, is perhaps the album’s most fascinating. “There’s nothing left to supply to revive what has been taken,” our narrator proclaims. “Your physique is a temple, however your holy wounds are aching.” It cuts to the bone, leaving you dazed and hungry for context. Fortunately, The Students provides a lot.
7. Actuality
We be taught that Chanticleer has apparently fallen sufferer to “insanity or an early loss of life,” blurring the road between the 2. Trying to succeed in by, Chanticleer’s ghost sings to his bandmates: “Properly in case you can take me when the mountains break/ And the ocean swallows up the sky/ You may trip on me, I’ll take you past perception/ I’ll present you the rationale why.” It needs to be the album’s most transferring tune, however at 11 minutes, its sentimentality feels outstretched and considerably compelled. It’s refreshing to listen to guitarist Ethan Ives sing co-leads, however with Toledo having beforehand voiced the character of Artemis, the story solely turns into more durable to observe for the listener, making what needs to be essentially the most cathartic level in its arc really feel barely redundant.
8. Planet Desperation
The Students’ towering climax is a towering space-prog odyssey that marks the band’s longest tune up to now, clocking in at practically 19 minutes. We observe Hyacinth, the dean of Parnassus’s Liberal Arts college, who has been poisoned by the rival Clown School and bears witness to scenes of destruction at his campus. He even provides a shoutout to Ziggy Stardust, which appears compulsory given simply how carefully it hews again to that specific idea album. But it surely isn’t the form of multi-part, hook-filled suite that CSH have perfected; there are a number of actions, however they serve the theatrical format fairly than driving the momentum of the tune. But it provides Toledo the house to ship a few of his most pointed and hovering lyrics on the album: “’Til the youngsters develop up all proper/ Till hearts don’t break anymore/ Till we don’t spend the remainder of our lives fixing all the things that occurred earlier than.” It’s bolstered by the return of the file’s strongest chorus, “You may love once more/ In case you strive once more” and ‘Gethsemane’, as if to say: consider, even in case you die making an attempt.
9. True/False Lover
Shock! Chanticleer has been alive this complete time, so the file involves a detailed with its shortest and most effortlessly upbeat tune. After greater than half an hour of dangerous experimentation and traditional rock opera worship, ‘True/False Lover’ serves as a reminder of Automobile Seat Headrest’s pure impulses as an formidable indie rock band for the playlist period. “Residence without end, out the backdoor, yet another time/ Fields are planted, ready for {the summertime},” Toledo sings. Irrespective of what number of pivots they make, their music can’t assist however in the end really feel like a homecoming.
